Step Across the Border (soundtrack)

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For the film of the same name, see Step Across the Border.

Professional reviews
Step Across the Border

Soundtrack by Fred Frith
Released	1990
Recorded	1979–1989
Genre	Avant-progressive rock
Length	1:13:31
Label	RecRec Music, Switzerland
Producer(s)	Fred Frith
AMG link
Fred Frith chronology
The Top of His Head (1989)	Step Across the Border (1990)	Quartets (1994)
CD releases

Fred Records CD release.

Step Across the Border is an soundtrack double album by English guitarist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith, of the 1990 avant-garde documentary film on Frith, Step Across the Border. The album features music from the film performed by Frith and other musicians, and covers ten years of Frith's musical career. For this reason, the album is also regarded as a compilation album.

1 Music
2 Track listing
3 Personnel
4 Recording details
- 4.1 Tracks from other albums
5 CD reissues
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Music

Step Across the Border is more than a just a soundtrack. It includes additional tracks, for example, "Drum Factory" and "Candy Machine", that were written for the album by Frith from ambient sounds in the film. Discussing the album, Frith said: ^[1]

It struck me as not very interesting just to take what was exactly in the film and stick it on a CD and put it out as a soundtrack. Apart from anything else, the function, when you listen with the image and when you listen without the image, is very, very different.

One of the things I particularly enjoyed doing was taking raw sound from locations during the film, like the candy machine, and writing pieces of music to go with them, which is totally unnecessary within the context of the film, because they have their own logic ... In the film, the candy machine is there, and you hear the noise it makes but the image was so strong that there was no need to do anything with it. On the record there was no point of sticking the sound of a machine on there, because it wouldn't mean very much.

The album also includes live music as performed in the film, for example "Houston St"; tracks from other albums that accompany scenes in the film, for example "Too Much Too Little"; and tracks from other albums that replace live covers of those tracks performed in the film, for example "Legs".

[edit] Track listing

"Sparrow Song" (Frith) – 1:28
"Voice of America (part 3)" (Frith, Ostertag) / "Legs" (Frith, Laswell, Maher) – 4:24
"Selluloid Restaurant" (Frith) / "The Old Man Puts Out the Fire" (Frith) – 3:09
"After Dinner" (Haco) – 1:47
"Houston St" (Frith, Zorn) – 2:54
"Drum Factory" (Frith) – 2:01
"Regardless of Rain" (Frith, Cora) – 3:05
"Candy Machine" (Frith) – 2:59
"Romanisches Café" (Frith) – 6:19
"The Border" (Frith, Hemenway) – 3:29
"Nirvana Again" (Frith) – 1:53
"Scottish Roppongi" (Frith) – 1:46
"Norrgården Nyvla" (Frith) – 2:58
"Birds" (Frith, Hodgkinson) – 2:18
"The As Usual Dance Towards the Other Flight to What is Not (part 3)" (Frith) – 1:47
"Williamsburg Bridge" (Frith) – 1:53
"Same Old Me" (Frith) / "Williamsburg Bridge (reprise)" (Frith) – 4:10
"The As Usual Dance Towards the Other Flight to What is Not (part 5)" (Frith) – 2:24
"Lost and Found" (Frith) – 3:21
"Nine by Nine" (Frith, Hayashi) – 5:52
"Evolution" (Frith) – 3:20
"Union Square" (Frith) – 1:41
"Morning Song" (Bittová, Fajt, Pitinsky) – 2:00
"Voice of America (part 4)" (Frith, Ostertag) – 2:02
"Too Much Too Little" (Frith, Curran) – 2:08
"Too Late" (Frith) – 2:23

[edit] Personnel

The numbers below indicate the tracks on which the musicians played.

Fred Frith (1-3, 5-22, 24-26) – guitar, violin, bass guitar, DX7, Casio, percussion, bottles, home-made instruments, voice
Tom Cora (1, 7, 10) – cello, drum, voice
Zeena Parkins (1, 10) – keyboards, drum, voice
Bob Ostertag (2a, 11, 24) – Serge synthesizer, tapes, samples
Bill Laswell (2b, 17a) – bass guitar
Fred Maher (2b, 17a) – drums
John Zorn (5) – alto saxophone
Jean Derome (11) – alto saxophone
René Lussier (11) – bass guitar
Kevin Norton (11) – drums
Eino Haapala (13) – guitar
Lars Hollmer (13) – keyboards
Hans Bruniusson (13, 21) – drums
Tim Hodgkinson (14) – bass clarinet
Iva Bittová (19, 23) – violin, voice
Pavel Fajt (19, 23) – beer cans, guitar, voice
Eitetsu Hayashi (20) – taiko
Tina Curran (25) – bass guitar
Haco (4) – piano, voice

[edit] Recording details

Tracks 1, 10 – recorded by Tim Hodgkinson at Sunrise, Kirchberg, Switzerland, December 1985
Tracks 2a, 24 – recorded live at PASS, New York, January 1981
Track 2b – recorded by Martin Bisi at OAO Studio, New York, June 1981
Tracks 3a, 4 – recorded by Yasushi Utsunomiyaat at MUE Studio, Osaka, Japan, February 1988
Tracks 2a, 3b, 6, 8, 12, 15, 16, 17b, 18, 22, 24, 26 – recorded by Rainer Carben at Bavaria TV Studios in Munich, Germany, December 1989
Tracks 5, 7 – recorded live at The Kitchen, New York City, February 1989
Tracks 9, 12 – recorded live at the Romanisches Café, Tokyo, Japan, February 1988
Track 11 – recorded live in rehearsal at Roulette, New York City, February 1988
Track 13 – recorded at Chickenhouse, Uppsala, Sweden and Sunrise, Kirchberg, Switzerland, July 1979
Tracks 14, 20, 22 – recorded live at ROX, Tokyo, Japan, February 1988
Track 14 – recorded at Hodgkinson's home in Yorkshire and Brixton, England, December 1988
Tracks 17a, 21, 25 – recorded in Frith's appartment in New York City, August 1983
Track 19 – recorded by Rudolf Oleschko in Provence, France and Paosostraße, Munich, Germany, July 1989
Tracks 23 – recorded at a hotel room, Berne, Switzerland March 1989

[edit] Tracks from other albums

Track 1 – from Skeleton Crew's contribution to the Island of Sanity compilation (1986)
Tracks 2a, 24 – from Fred Frith, Bob Ostertag and Phil Minton's LP Voice of America (1982)
Track 2b – from Massacre's LP Killing Time (1981)
Track 10 – from Skeleton Crew's LP The Country of Blinds (1986)
Track 13 – from Fred Frith's LP Gravity (1980)
Tracks 17a, 21, 25 – from Fred Frith's LP Cheap at Half the Price (1983)

[edit] CD reissues

In 1991 East Side Digital and RecRec Music re-issued Step Across the Border on CD.
In 2003 Fred Records released a remastered version of Step Across the Border on CD.