Jonny Greenwood: Inherant Vice, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Nonesuch)
This is the third time that Mr Greenwood, the guitarist from Radiohead but also now an orchestral composer in his own right, has scored an Paul Thomas Anderson film, the first two being There Will Be Blood and The Master.
His score for There Will Be Blood was especially memorable, a searing and solemn, elegiac sound, which could stand alone outside its role in the movie.
This, for the rambling film adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's novel of the same name, is more lush and silvery. The record features songs too, including the glorious Les Fleur by Minnie Riperton (from 1970), and Neil Young's Journey Through The Past (1972). The soundtrack music itself is languorous and beautiful, with a Hollywood sheen perhaps not heard in previous soundtrack work or indeed Radiohead's work.
The key theme - Shasta - and its versions, Shasta Fay and Shasta Fay Hepworth, mixes both lyricism with a well honed glossy menace. As an album in itself, it soothes the ear without particularly drawing attention to itself. This is grabbed more by the well-chosen songs, including Any Day Now by Chuck Jackson (from 1962) and the tremendous Vitamin C by Can (1972). The film itself has had mixed reviews. But this is a effective and atmospheric suite of music.
Phil Miller
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