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CD review: AFTER EARTH soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 08/10/2013
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

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 08/09/2013
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

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 08/08/2013
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

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 08/07/2013
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

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 08/06/2013
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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Interview: BYZANTIUM composer Javier Navarrete hears vampire grrll power

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
BYZANTIUM | ©2013 IFC Entertainment

America might have its upstart, sparkly rock-and-roll vampires. However in Europe the cinematic myths surrounding these creatures tend to be somewhat more romantically sophisticated, encouraging their scores to be similarly cloaked in poetic refinement. It’s a crimson wellspring where Intimately Baroque instrumentations conjure images of corseted eroticism and raging orchestras relish in unholy evil, all while a chorus simultaneously evokes the undead’s transgression against God, and their impossible dream of returning to his good graces. With his music’s striking mix of tenderness and savagery, Javier Navarrete takes on feminine, melodic shape to tap into the jugular of time-honored vampire music […]Read On »


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CD review: TAKE THIS WALTZ soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 08/05/2013
TAKE THIS WALTZ soundtrack | ©2013 Movie Score Media

A prolific Canadian composer whose most popular film might still be his scoring debut out of the slasher gate with 1982s VISITING HOURS, Jonathan Goldsmith has since written far more delicate works, especially for director Sarah Polley on AWAY FROM HER and STORIES WE TELL. There’s a real feminine sensitivity to the actress-turned-filmmaker’s work, a tenderness that Goldsmith captures with surreal enchantment for the exceptional romantic drama TAKE THIS WALTZ. As Polley depicts the slow, sensual burn towards a marriage-ending affair, Goldsmith captures her breathless anticipation with music box bells and the light tap of a piano, graced with muted […]Read On »


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CD review: REMEMBER ME soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
REMEMBER ME soundtrack | ©2013 Capcom

Olivier Derivière’s name first dealt with amnesia in his videogame soundtrack for 2008s ALONE IN THE DARK, where a memory-wiped tough guy battled demons in an apocalyptic NYC. Now he’s back in who-am-I style for Nilin, an acrobatic ass-kicker from 2084 Neo-Paris that really levels up for this French musician with his new game score for REMEMBER ME. As Nilin seeks to reclaim her past while re-arranging the memories of others, Derivière comes up with a striking approach that might be best described as a trip-hop spin on Don Davis’ scores for THE MATRIX series. Here it’s given a brighter […]Read On »


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CD review: NO PLACE ON EARTH soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 08/04/2013
NO PLACE ON EARTH soundtrack | ©2013 Varese Sarabande Records

It’s almost disarming how pleasant John Piscitello’s documentary score is when you think that it’s for a Holocaust movie about Ukrainian Jews who find shelter, and safety from the Holocaust in the bowels of a giant, utterly dark cave. While Piscitello evokes the string-shivering danger of the depths these survivors are reduced to, the main feeling that NO PLACE ON EARTH evokes is a hauntingly beautiful nostalgia for a past, an innocence that can’t be reclaimed. Think of this gently melodic score as the visions that these people see in the dark, tonal visualizations light and love of homes and […]Read On »


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CD review: BENEATH and WE STEAL SECRETS

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
BENEATH soundtrack | ©2013 Milan Records

Spinning out a groovily weird indie score beat with the likes of ANOTHER EARTH, 28 HOTEL ROOMS and NOBODY WALKS, the collective called Fall On Your Sword (otherwise known as Will Bates, doing that Daft Punk mask think on his company’s website) has managed to sound different with each soundtrack, especially when dealing with the dual horrors of killer fish and our government’s clandestine activities. Probably the wackiest, and perhaps creepiest musical-design treatment that a mega-piranha has yet gotten, BENEATH uses teeth-scraping metallic effects and berserk buzzing, so much so that the score’s subject feels like it’s about a swarm […]Read On »


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