Music

CD Review: NOW YOU SEE ME soundtrack

NOW YOU SEE ME soundtrack | ©2013 Glassnote

Few Hollywood composers have nailed the rocking rhythm of the orchestral beat like Brian Tyler, whose action scores for such pictures as EAGLE EYE, FAST AND FURIOUS 6 and two EXPENDABLES are all about thematic propulsion, going like jet engines until they orgasmically plateau. But while Tyler’s the go-to guy for fast cars and muscular mayhem, the composer has rarely had the chance to use his rhythmic sound for a humorous action score, one where no one really gets hurt (though his yeoman work on IRON MAN 3 certainly didn’t lack for comedic riffs). Now Tyler’s testosterone at last gets […]Read On »


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CD review: ROSEWOOD soundtrack

ROSEWOOD soundtrack | ©2013 La La Land Records

Beyond exploring other galaxies and ravishingly exotic lands, the urbane composer John Williams has found a rich, melodic vein to mine in the south from THE REIVERS‘ coming of age to CONRACK‘s rural school and the comedy-drama car chase that marked Williams’ first collaboration with Steven Spielberg on THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS. But this Queens’ native’s way of knowing how to wield a guitar, jaw harp and harmonica like a regular good old boy would also show the region at its ugliest in a Florida town called ROSEWOOD, whose white population expelled its black populace during one murderous night. While John […]Read On »


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CD review: THALE soundtrack

THALE soundtrack | ©2013 Movie Score Media

From child vampires to giant trolls and Santa’s naked evil helpers, strange creatures have increasingly been appearing from the Nordic regions. THALE is an especially striking, coccyx-accented young woman to arrive from these hinterlands. And the mystery behind her is played for all of its beautiful eeriness by composers Raymond Enoksen and Geirmund Simonsen, musical creature hunters who’ve yielded stunning findings for this new wave of “fairy tale” horror pictures, whose originality is rapidly putting Hollywood’s genre films to shame. The fiddle seems an indigenous instrument to this isolated, rustic lands of forest and snow, so it’s appropriate that THALE […]Read On »


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CD review: TOO LATE BLUES and THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG soundtracks

TOO LATE BLUES soundtrack | ©2013 Kritzerland Records

As pretty much the only label determinedly releasing scores from before 1965, if not 1960 at this point, Kritzerland gets extra points for concentrating on the jazz scores of the Mad Men era, not only releasing such stalwarts as Elmer Bernstein (THE RAT RACE), but also such equally worthy composers as Adolph Deutsch (THE APARTMENT) and Andre Previn (TWO FOR THE SEASAW). Now Kirtzerland has released two more wonderful scores that push past 70 minutes of listening with the era’s inimitable swing, one with an Asian accent, and the other packing the true improvisatory heart of the art form. One […]Read On »


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CD review: WORLD WAR Z soundtrack

WORLD WAR Z soundtrack | ©2013 Warner Bros. Records

Sure Marco Beltrami scored the first movie in zombie history that elicited a tear-jerking lump in one’s throat instead of ripping it out. But just because Beltrami did such a great job on the simillarly terrific WARM BODIES, don’t think the guy behind SCREAM, HELLBOY and THE THING has gone all soft and emo on us as WORLD WAR Z shows with music-gnashing global destruction. Imagine ten thousand Ghost Faces piling on top of each other to make mincemeat out of humanity, and you’ll hear the relentless, rhythmic rage that’s made Beltrami the go-to guy for horror scoring. There’s tons […]Read On »


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CD review: AFTER EARTH soundtrack

AFTER EARTH soundtrack | ©2013 Sony Music

They may have started off with the THE SIXTH SENSE. But with one godawful M. Night Shyamalan movie after the next, the one thing you can be assured of is a very good score by his musical enabler James Newton Howard. His scoring always manages to make the absurdity that the director’s fallen into just a bit less goofy, whether it’s using solo violins to embody killer planets for THE HAPPENING or LADY IN THE WATER‘s rapturously symphonic fairy tale. While there’s no surprise that Howard has risen to the challenge with AFTER EARTH, it’s no small help to his […]Read On »


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CD review: YELLOW ROCK soundtrack

YELLOW ROCK soundtrack | ©2013 Intrada Records

As every western from ULANZA’S GOLD to JEREMIAH JOHNSON has proven, two big no-no’s for the white man is to go crazy for precious minerals, let alone violate a sacred Indian burial ground. Both are done in spades for the indie oater YELLOW ROCK, as a well-intentioned search party spins out of control with greed to the accompaniment of a vengeful, straight-arrow score by Randy Miller. An underrated, orchestral composer for such films as HELLRAISER III, WITHOUT LIMITS and TV movie spins on DARKMAN and FIRESTARTER,  Miller has always put impressive thematic muscle into his work. His talent is especially […]Read On »


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CD review: WHAT MAISIE KNEW soundtrack

WHAT MAISE KNEW soundtrack | ©2013 Milan Records

As a composer with a sensibility as rhythmic as it is eccentrically loopy, Devotchka’s Nick Urata has captured the ups and downs of adult relationships with such charming scores as CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE, RUBY SPARKS and ARTHUR NEWMAN. What makes WHAT MAISIE KNEW particularly striking is how gentle Urata is in his approach, but no less ironic as he evokes a children’s sensibility to depict a little girl who’s caught in a tug of war between her divorced parents and their new amours. It’s an “Alice in Wonderland” approach where a fantasia of bells, gentle pianos, halting strings and a […]Read On »


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CD review: CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER soundtrack | ©2013 Intrada Records

Horner fans will have a field day with this complete presentation for the composer’s second stab at Jack Ryan, Intrada’s two-CD set offering a virtual checklist of everything that’s great about the composer’s unabashed symphonic sensibilities. CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER offers the heroic outrage in full swing, from a valorous main theme to another mournful take on a classical piece (here reprising Aram Khachaturian’s “Gayane Ballet Suite” after ALIENS) and a organic-electronic mastery of world music – here tuned to the South American drug war. CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER was a welcome change of pace after Horner accompanied America’s favorite […]Read On »


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CD review: STUCK IN LOVE soundtrack

STUCK IN LOVE soundtrack | ©2013 Varese Sarabande Records

Nate Walcott (of the group Bright Eyes) and Mike Mogis go from the elderly, ironically enchanted vibe of the excellent Alzheimer’s film LOVELY, STILL to STUCK IN LOVE, a far younger-skewing picture about a romantic roundelay of a writer’s family, producing LOVE‘s score as well as its indie-centric songs. “At Your Door” (featuring Big Harp) has an fun, determined bounce, while teaming with Friends of Gemini for the similarly upbeat “Somersaults in Spring.” Other tunes range from the meh strumming of Conor Oberst’s “You Are Your Mother’s Child” to the likewise indistinct rock of Polkadot’s “Like Pioneers” to pretty good […]Read On »


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