Gravity Falls Soundtrack- Vinyl Review

Gravity Falls was a phenomenal animated series. Over 39 episodes, i grew to love a town that felt like it was just a stones throw from Twin Peaks and a hop skip and a jump from the island in Lost. In this land oddities including rainbow vomiting gnomes, mermen and ghosts roamed free. With a narrative similar to The X-Files in structure in that there is an overarching story, as well as Kolchak’s 'monster of the week' episodes, the many questions and mysteries came to a stunning and satisfying conclusion.

There are very few series that are as well conceived, written and executed as Gravity Falls was. When an animated series leaves you thinking about parallel dimensions, alternate universes and man's place in the cosmos then you know there's something special. Beyond all that, the soundtrack for the series was phenomenal. I loved the music as it added so much to the series so when the vinyl soundtrack came up I bought it on pre-order. I had to wait a while to get it, due to Covid slowdown, but when it arrived I was ecstatic.

The package is handsomely homed in Ghostshrimp's superflat art style which houses red vinyls. It also has hidden cyphers which adds to the prestige of the whole piece.

So what of the tracks themselves? Well, there's a lot over 2 LPs. The track list is:

A Side
Gravity Falls Main Title Theme
Let's Rewind
Gobblewonker Chase
Pig Is Soos
Book Discovery - Gideon's Theme
Wax Battle
Boyz Crazy Medley
Let's Do This
Is It Bottomless - Triangulum Entagulum
ybmaL A stnaW ohW
Fight Fighters - Battle Suite
Blanchin

B Side
Finally I Have Them All
Gideon's Song
It's All Let Up To This
Working Girls
Gnome Chase
Gideon Rises - End Credits
Who's That Girl
Fiddleford Hadron Magucket
Stan Wrong Song
A Very Tricky Triangle

C Side
A World of Enchantment or Whatever - I Came Up With A Plan
The Two Kids Who Ruined My Life
Everything Changes Today
TIME BATTLE!!!
Blackened Skies
Don't Let Them Escape
I Wanna Be Exes
I Need That Machine To Stay On
Yeah Dude Friends - Your Fighting Only Makes Us Look More Rad
Takin' Over 2 Nite

D Side
Mabel It's Bill
Goat and a Pig
Weirdmageddon Pt. 1 - Suite
Giggle Creek
Bill Tricked Me
My Heart Is Made of Rainbows
I'm a Flippin' Corduroy
Saying Goodbye to Gravity Falls
Weirdmageddon Pt. 4 - End Credits
Grvatiy lFals ehTme (s'lliB deppohC dna dewercS ximeR)
We'll Meet Again

I've listened to the album a few times and have some thoughts on some of the tracks:
Intro- A wonderfully start to the album and with a spoopy sound mixed with a poppy vibe.

Let's do this (score)- Wonky electro cheese that sounds like wonderful chiptuney games music. It's just over half a minute but it's great!

Is It Bottomless - Triangulum Entangulum- This captures the essence of the show, starting off quite layed back with gentle strumming then gets all shimmery horror-like. It then gets into John Carpenter/ Stranger Things heavy driving synth with a discordant wailing sound. Very unsettling in the best possible sense.

Fight Fighters - Battle Score- This is like a loving mega mix to fighting game music of old starting with an 8-bit chip tune to Street Fighter-ish 16bit music, then boombastic Mortal Kombat music (the one where toy feel the need to shout out the name of the game really loudly) then to full on Yuzo Koshiro Streets of Rage love-in. It's epic in every sense of the word!

Blanchin'- One of the standout tracks from the series. It's so memorable for its happy rap styling.

Finally I Have Them All- a dramatic Hans Zimmer-esque score where the driving rhythm carries the melody forward to a crescendo.

It's All Led Up To This- A dramatic theme with a chugging strings sound that is dramatic and powerful. Beautiful.

Fiddleford Hadron McGucket- This is a beautiful twinkly track full of yearning and sadness. A light arpeggio plays over a wending synth sound, adding a winsome nostalgia to the piece.

Don't Let Them Escape- This tune slaps HARD! It sounds like an 80s hair-metal track in places as it is frenetic and chaotic.

Yeah Dude Friends - This is a cheerful whimsical piece that is only 30 seconds or so long but is emotive.

Takin' Over 2 Nite- A great ensemble song from the three main characters and full of joy.

Weirdmageddon Part 1 (suite)- This is a trippy prog-rock track which consists of about 4 pieces which move from spooky to energetic to cautious. Its a great track.

Saying Goodbye to Gravity Falls- This is a beautifully written piano piece which is full of sadness and feels full of memories.

The album is gorgeous and was well worth the wait. Obviously, it isn't the compete soundtrack of the entire series but what is here is gold. I love how they created 'suites' to connect themed tracks together. I do miss the absence of Disco Girl as that was one of my favourite tracks from the series but I'm not going to be too upset as this album is a magnificent gift that I don't think anyone was really expecting after so many years of the series ending.

Hilda- Complete Series 1 Review

Hilda is a graphic comic series and now Netflix animated show about a young adventure loving girl. The 13 part animate series is adapted from the multi award winning and highly acclaimed graphic novel series by Luke Pearson.

Protagonist Hilda lives with her mother in a cabin near the woods and mountains, away from people and it is in this landscape that Hilda goes on her first few adventures.
The first two episodes are a delight, reminiscent of Tove Jansson's Moomins, in that fantastical adventures are had and magical creatures such as the woodsman, stone trolls and giants are met against the backdrop of the wilds. The weirdness and slight tinge of unease reminds me of Over The Garden Wall, with episode 2 being especially melancholic and touching.

After the events of episode 2, Hilda and her mother leave their cabin and move to the city of Trolberg. Hilda then adapts to life in an urban setting, meeting new people and the complexities that brings. She begins to understand the beauty that can exist in the city and develops friendships through the Sparrow Scouts group she joins and it is here that the main thrust of the series is pushed forward with each episode being an amazing and whimsical adventure. There are elves, stone giants, a Thunderbird and even a nightmare inducing teen thrown into the mix and it all ends up making sense as the world is a tapestry of story and character with its world building logic.

The stories are often simple standalone adventure tales but there are elements of continuity as each episode has repercussions for all that follows. The episodes often have a lot of heart and are touching, something I've been seeing a lot more of in 'children's animation' over the past few years.

The animation is stunning and the colour palette beautiful at conveying the mood. The fully realised characters are beautifully animated and even though they may look quite basic, have warmth and depth.
The voice acting is superb, especially the voice actress of Hilda, Bella Ramsey.

The soundtrack is also really something, all synthy and atmospheric, it has elements of the 80s but is definitely its own thing. The title track by one of my favourite singers, Grimes, is a triumph and interspersed throughout the series' moments of wonder are individual tracks that create whimsy and joy. The standout for my daughter and I was when Hilda was riding of the water spirit in the Lost Clan episode. And that is what this series is about, a programme for adults and children alike. My daughter is nearly 4 years old and loved the episodes I showed her but some of the episodes I didn't let her watch as I knew for prior watching that they would scare her.

I binged the series over the course of an evening and a day and loved it. It reminds me of Gravity Falls and Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated and that is very high praise indeed as those two series are some of the best animated shows I've ever seen. If you get a chance watch Hilda, you won’t be disappointed.

LINK- Disenchantment- Complete Series 1 Review

LINK- Gravity Falls Complete Series Review

LINK- Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated Complete Series 1 Review

LINK- Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated Series 2 Review

Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated- Series 2 Review

Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated season 2 kicks off a few months after the downbeat ending of the first season. Last we saw, the gang are all split up and scattered to the winds. Within the first few minutes we find that Scooby is in a pound and kept in the hotbox Steve McQueen 'Great Escape' style, Shaggy is Private Hippy in a military school, Fred is a hobo going door to door looking for his real parents and Velma is alone In Crystal Cove watching the whole place go to wrack and ruin due to a clown man baby (naturally)

We see the gang reunite but initially without Daphne, who rejoins later. That is one of the most wonderful thing about this series, the writers make the many moments feel earned and true to the characters that they have spent many episodes rounding out.
As the series progresses the team start gathering the remaining segments of the planespheric discs, the fate of the original Mystery Incorporated is revealed and Fred and Daphne's will they/ won't they relationship dynamic is finally resolved in the most dramatic and powerful way. There are moments of true drama as some characters have heel turns, turn good and die in the most heartbreaking way. However there is lots of levity with pop culture references sprinkled throughout including Rorschach (yes, of Watchmen fame), the Man from Another Place (the backwards talking little man) from Twin Peaks, Werner Herzog, Nosferatu, Johnny Quest, The Brady Bunch and many other eclectic series and movies.

I've said it before in my first series review but this series is the best that Scooby Doo has ever been, in fact it is one of the finest animated series I have ever seen and I've seen hundreds! The fact that a 'children's' cartoon deals with Mayan legends, end of the world prophecies, parallel universes and extra-dimensional beings like the Anunaki yet still retains its wide eyed innocence and playfulness is astonishing. Next to Gravity Falls this is one of the best animated series ever in my humble opinion and the fact that it leans heavily on Twin Peaks confirms that it is a series with some serious pedigree and solid foundations on which to build off.

LINK- Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated Season 1 Review

LINK- Gravity Falls Complete Series Review

Gravity Fall Complete Series Review- No Spoilers

Gravity Falls is a special place—a town that feels like it's just a stones throw from Twin Peaks and a hop skip and a jump from the island in Lost. In this land oddities including rainbow vomiting gnomes, mermen and ghosts roam free. The series involves twins Dipper and Mable, who are sent to stay for the duration of the summer holidays, with their Uncle Stan (Grunkle Stan) at the Mystery Shack, a ramshackle building housing fake phenomena. There's no Log Lady but there are a stereotypical miner Old Man McGucket, Lazy Susan and manchild Soos; a colourful range of characters that give Gravity Falls a wonderful eclectic cast that brings the place alive.

The series is 39 episodes long and is similar to The X-Files in structure in that there is a story arc, as well as a monster of the week. The central mystery is where the monsters are coming from and who is the author of the 3 tomes that Dipper discovers which describes the phenomena in the town in great detail? Over the course of the 39 episodes many questions and mysteries arise. The cliffhanger at the end of series one was reminiscent of the end of series one cliffhanger in Lost but this one had the writing chops to pull it through to the second series and continue wonderfully through the second series to a satisfying conclusion.

Gravity Falls is a Disney production, surprisingly so, as it does feel like it would feel more at home on the Cartoon Network alongside Adventure Time, Over the Garden Wall or Stephen Universe. It feels edgy and on the nose, especially when you consider the age of its target audience but there is a definite heart and maturity to it that has led to a larger adult and maturer teen fanbase who enjoy the cryptography and codes that litter the episodes, but without excluding the younger viewers. During the course of the show over 3 years, thousands of fan theories abound, each week after each show discussion boards would be ablaze dissecting the details in intricate and exacting detail. The last time I saw this kind of clamouring around a series was with Lost when it was at its prime and in gaming when Bioshock Infinite wowed/ confused us with it's ending.

The final episode of Gravity Falls was on earlier this week and I won't spoil it here but I will say that the ending was a wonderful way to tie up the series and had a huge emotional punch. The character arc is beautifully realised here and unlike Lost, the ending was worth the many years of waiting and delivered. The pure wonderful weirdness of the final arc, the 3 part Weirdmegeddon, truly encapsulated what made Gravity Falls such a pleasure for its fans. The stakes were high and it didn't patronise its audience, there was real danger and real cost and true character development, something a lot of animation has lost today.

There are very few series that are as well conceived, written and executed as Gravity Falls and when an animated series leaves you thinking about parallel dimensions, alternate universes and man's place in the cosmos then you know there's something special. There are few shows that quote or are influences by Satre, H.P. Lovecraft or Danielkewski.

Gravity Falls is the perfect example of what other kid shows should strive to achieve. If you haven't watched Gravity Falls yet, look it up. You'll be glad you did.