"MOVING FORWARD": NEW PRODUCTION LIBRARY MUSIC ALBUM OUT NOW

Recently released: a new collection of original production music by Mike Hallenbeck, available from Opening Line Music Group and such sub-publishers as BMG. Recent placements inlclude broadcast news and variety programming in the Nehterlands.

Entitled “Moving Forward”, the album proceeds from a rootsy folk-rock approach featuring chunky rhythms that drive strummed acoustic guitar, wistful piano melodies, and chiming pedal steel counterpoint. The tracks call to mind late 70s folk rock and contemporary Americana, with a dash of the Feelies and perhaps “Reckoning”-era R.E.M. sprinkled in.

A few standout tracks here, excerpted from the album’s Dutch outlet:

Reimagined

Moving Forward

Push the Envelope

Reaching Out

With a little luck, you’ll hear these underscoring home improvement shows and life insurance ads before too long! Enjoy.

More production music by Mike Hallenbeck

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BEN AND DOPEY: SOUND + MUSIC CONSULTING

Lately I’ve been serving as a sound and music consultant on the feature film “Ben and Dopey” by animator John Akre. It’s a lot of fun listening to the original songs John’s been writing and making arrangement recommendations, plus suggesting areas where his homespun sound effects work might come in handy. I’m enjoying helping an artist realize an aesthetic through sound and music, using his own visual sensibility as a style guide.

The film tells the 1987 story of a Minneapolis street musician and his relationship with an animated duck created by his mother, an underground animator who seems to have disappeared. The movie takes place in the neighborhood that used to be where the Minneapolis Convention Center is now, as well as the original Nicollet Mall.

More work by Mike Hallenbeck for animation

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ORIGINAL MUSIC PLACEMENT: PLAY YOUR PETS RIGHT

An original musical composition of mine recently placed on “Play Your Pets Right”, a British show on the Sky Kids app. As the “Play Your Pets Right” web page describes itself: “Pets: cute, talented and exemplary contestants… most of the time. Play Your Pets Right is a comedy entertainment show in which the nation’s pets battle it out in hilarious games that test their speed, agility, reaction time and focus. Each episode is filled with tension and fun in equal measure as different challenges are taken on by not only cats and dogs but also rabbits, chameleons and guinea pigs – all cheered on by their proud owners.”

As a veteran cat daddy, I approve.