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CD Review: THE MASTER soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 10/27/2012
THE MASTER soundtrack | ©2012 Nonesuch Records

For better and worse, Paul Thomas Anderson is making movies like no one else out there, beautifully done pictures about the ugliness of the human soul. And he’s discovered composers as confrontational as his subject matter, from the ceaselessly surging strings of Jon Brion’s MAGNOLIA to the bizarrely overt percussion of his PUNCH DRUNK LOVE. But nothing resembled the unique milkshake thunderclap of former Radiohead member Johnny Greenwood’s brilliantly experimental approach to THERE WILL BE BLOOD, his at times agonizingly dissonant music capturing the hateful psyche of an oil tycoon. Now Greenwood’s way of playing subtext while outwardly sounding like […]Read On »


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CD Review: BODY HEAT soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 10/14/2012
BODY HEAT soundtrack | ©2012 Film Score Monthly

Few composers personify all things sex like John Barry. Not just the carnal act, but the romance and burning desire. It’s scoring as skin on skin, pure pleasure made through the jazzily lush fusion of brass and strings. When listening to this composer’s classic Kama Sutra, there’s no chapter that captures this mix of eroticism, emotion and danger with the sensuality of 1981’s BODY HEAT. Lawrence Kasdan made a surprising move from penning the PG likes of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK to writing and directing this then temperature-raising R update of classic 40s-style film […]Read On »


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CD Review: RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION and THE APPARITION soundtracks

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION soundtrack | ©2012 Milan Records

Horror scoring seems to be rapidly transforming into some ungodly beast, composed of mutated sound effects, shrieking percussion and shards of what stands for melody. Not that this raging sonic flesh is such a bad thing, especially when in the hands of Tomandandy. Known to their relatives as Tom Hajdu and Andy Milburn, this duo has been responsible for any number of innovative works for the genre, including THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR and THE HILLS HAVE EYES. Now after accompanying Alice against the Umbrella corporation for RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE, the composers make that adventure seem positively sedate […]Read On »


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CD Review: SAMSARA soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 10/03/2012
SAMSARA soundtrack | ©2012 Varese Sarabande Records

Where filmmaker Godfrey Reggio’s magical mystery tours through global cultures employ an all-encompassing, “scored” approach by Phillip Glass for any number of pictures ending in QATSI, his image-reliant counterpart (and former cinematographer) Ron Fricke instead had a lighter, and equally transfixing musical vision for his first film BARAKA, a similarly-themed metaphysical travelogue that used indigenous tunes and a meditative score by Michael Stearns to convey a world out of balance. Stearns is back for Fricke’s second feature after twelve years, with Marcello De Francisci and Lisa Gerrard added to the transfixing world music mix tape called SAMSARA, one way smarter […]Read On »


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CD Review: BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES: VOLUME 2 (3,500 edition)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 10/02/2012
BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES: VOLUME 2 soundtrack | ©2012 Nathan Furst

Shirley Walker was a woman who shattered the stereotype that no female composer could assume the musical costume of a male superhero, let alone a major Hollywood action score. Walker’s dynamic orchestral sound proved them wrong from THE FLASH to TURBULENCE. But if there’s one identity that she’ll likely be remembered for assuming, then it’s the darkly heroic music of the animated Batman, a lavish, film noir sound that embodied the WB network’s retro vision of the Caped Crusader, one that many fans still view as the finest representation of their DC icon. Walker’s work wasn’t simply “cartoon” music that […]Read On »


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CD Review: MIEL DE NARANJAS (ORANGE HONEY) soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 10/01/2012
ORANGE HONEY soundtrack | ©2012 Quartet Records

Portuguese composer Nuno Malo powerfully takes on the post Spanish Civil War, with its battle between freedom and fascist oppression continuing to take place in the region of Andalusia. It’s there in the 50s that a green recruit to Franco’s army thinks he’s set to do easy time, before finding himself in a crisis of conscience that’s both political and romantic- twin emotional poles that Malo evocatively conveys. His beautifully performed score is full of delicate foreboding, with lush strings and piano textures bringing to ear such dark Thomas Newman period scores as ROAD TO PERDITION and CINDERELLA MAN. It’s […]Read On »


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CD Review: DARKSIDERS II soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 09/30/2012
DARKSIDERS II soundtrack | ©2012 Thq Records

Having made a musical killing for such button-mashing slay-a-thons as ASSASSIN’S CREED, BORDERLANDS and HITMAN, Jesper Kyd gets one of his most intriguingly violent soundscapes for his first entry into DARKSIDERS, a game which now marks its second venture into post-apocalyptic territory. It’s a world wiped of humanity, where a horseman named Death battles a horde of angels and demons to bring back mortals to reap. It’s a clever conceit that straddles sci-fi, fantasy and horror, and Kyd pretty much hits every note, all while remaining remarkably light on his feet. Not nearly as cruel in its approach as the […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES soundtrack | ©2012 Watertower Music

The swelling, patriotic heroism that John Williams gave to SUPERMAN could just as well be a burst of crucifix-shaped sunlight in contrast to the thrumming, uber-dark approach that Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard gave to what’s arguably the most downbeat, if not utterly grim comic book saga in movie history. And now that Howard has left the bat cave with his more emotionally conventional orchestral touch, Zimmer’s wall of beat-sound is now truly ruling the belfry, taking the musical saga to new depths of intoxicating grimness for  THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. Fans of old school superhero scoring might be […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE WAR OF THE WORLDS soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 09/26/2012
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS soundtrack | ©2012 Intrada Records

Perhaps the finest purveyor of sci-fi and fantasy entertainment during the genre’s boomtown days of the 50’s and 60’s, George Pal’s films were just as distinguished for their epic visuals of proto-Bay destruction as they were for their musical grandeur, none more so than his apocalyptic classics THE WAR OF THE WORLDS and WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE. So it’s fitting that these two scores lead off a terrific Intrada compilation of early Pal-produced soundtracks, making for one of the most old school geek-tastic releases to be mined from the opening of the Paramount mountain. Where many of the era’s sci-fi scores […]Read On »


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Interview: Composer Marcelo Zarvos hears THE WORDS

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 09/22/2012
THE WORDS soundtrack | ©2012 Lakeshore Records

ZARVOS: In the haute world of writers, elegance, fashion and intellect are oft-used words when it comes to getting the keys to the kingdom of literary intelligentsia. It’s a gilded, lionized place that many have cheated their way into. And those seemingly fortunate con artists will oftentimes do anything to maintain that position, even at the cost of their relationships and mental health before the guise ultimately crumbles. THE WORDS is one such tale (or multiple tales) of young Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper), whose prized novel is unmasked for another’s when the real Old Man author (Jeremy Irons) comes calling. […]Read On »


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