A DISTANT DISCOVERY
2026 has been a quiet year for releases of James Horner’s music. The recent news of a fully backed Kickstarter campaign to re-record classic television scores was met with a very positive reception, and we wish all the success to Film Score Monthly and La-La Land Records for their endeavor.
La-La Land Records has just announced that in addition to being the label to release the Horner television album once it is completed, this August they are releasing a remastered and expanded album for the 1998 sci-fi blockbuster DEEP IMPACT.
Soon after this announcement, a surprise reveal from James Horner’s friends and collaborators Simon Rhodes and Horsemen Flight Team lead Ed Shipley with SKYWARD SPIRIT, a previously unknown work originally commissioned by the United States Air Force for their Thunderbirds Flight Team. The music was never completed as the USAF elected to move toward a different musical direction, and James Horner later went on to write FLIGHT for The Horsemen and was subsequently released in 2010, and heard in many air shows flown by the flight team since.
For DEEP IMPACT, legendary producer and restoration expert Mike Matessino has remastered the entire score for this new expanded release, as the original 1998 Sony Classical album was known for its whisper-quiet volume as it was mastered to preserve the very wide dynamic range of the recording. Very much the antithesis of the rival comet disaster film ARMAGEDDON, the Michael Bay action epic which favored grandiose action and over-the-top thrills, Mimi Leder’s DEEP IMPACT turned inward as a character drama with the science-fiction comet element as a backdrop to tell a story of how the world prepares for the potential end of life on Earth.
Much of the newly released material comes from early on in the film’s narrative, which follows MSNBC News reporter Jenny Lerner (Téa Leoni) investigating what was believed to be an extramarital affair in the White House. While some of it is performed on synths such as ‘You Used to Be a Person / Car Pullover’, a vital cue in the story is ‘Beck’s Basement’, a fully orchestral exercise in uncertainty as Lerner begins to uncover the truth from President Tom Beck (Morgan Freeman). It builds over its nearly 4-minute runtime to a tension-filled crescendo of suspense at the shocking revelation of how Earth will suffer an Extinction Level Event
All of the original album’s material returns here, such as the 13-minute ‘Our Best Hope…’, the signature piece ‘The Wedding’ and epic conclusion in ‘Drawing Straws’ and ‘Goodbye and Godspeed’ alongside expanded film versions of ‘A Distant Discovery’, ‘A National Lottery’ and ‘Sad News’.
Liner notes are by renowned author Jeff Bond, and the album is produced and artwork designed by Dan Goldwasser, who previews the album artwork at his excellent site, https://warmbutter.com/albums/deep-impact/
As SKYWARD SPIRIT was an incomplete piece of music, James Horner’s engineer and producing partner Simon Rhodes took on the challenging task of completing the piece utilizing his 20 years of experience and intimate knowledge of James’ musical vocabulary. The genesis of this effort was actually by chance:
In this promotional video for the work, Ed Shipley details how he was organizing some old photos and came across one with James Horner holding the first page of the USAF
Thunderbirds piece. He then contacted Simon Rhodes to inquire about if anything could be done with the single page, which prompted Rhodes to search the Horner archives and discovered that the foundation had been laid on four pages of manuscript, which contained a wealth of thematic material for him to elaborate and expand into a 15-minute orchestral wonder.
In 2023, Ed Shipley discussed the previously lost work on Medium long before the remaining pages were discovered:
Back when I oversaw the music for the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, a friend of mine in charge of Air Combat Command asked me to come up with a more modern playlist of songs, but I had always thought that it would be great if the Thunderbirds could have an orchestrated piece. I loved the music that James Horner created for Apollo 13, Braveheart and others, so I called his agent to ask if he would write a score for the Thunderbirds. I met James and we hit it off, and we remained friends even after the Air Force decided to go in another direction for the Thunderbirds project.
Horner used to be a pilot, so he was always intrigued by our Horsemen Flight Team and the flying we were doing. He started hanging around with us so much that we called him the fourth Horseman. While James was working on the music for Avatar, he composed an original score for us and kept the orchestra for an extra day to record it.
Before he tragically passed, he gifted me the original score sheet he used to pencil in the Horsemen score, which on the backside had the beginnings of the Air Force Thunderbirds piece.
SKYWARD SPIRIT is performed by The Royal Scottish National Orchestra under the baton of Robert Ziegler, who previously conducted additional music for both ROMEO & JULIET and WOLF TOTEM. Arranged and orchestrated by Simon Rhodes with the blessing of both Ed Shipley and the James Horner Estate.
Purchase DEEP IMPACT (Expanded Edition) from La-La Land Records: https://lalalandrecords.com/deep-impact-remastered-expanded-limited-edition-2-cd-set/
