Label: Mute Format: CD
OK, confession time- I have yet to get around to seeing the film to which this is the soundtrack, though I have been assured by people who have and whose opinions I respect that it’s awesome. Though that’s not really the point – the point is that I’m only able to judge this album on how well its stands up on its own. Don’t blame me if, when the music is heard in conjunction with the film, the whole thing seems as stunningly inappropriate as a skateboarding elk at the funeral of a dearly-beloved, though legendarily elkophobic, loved one. It seems unlikely, though, given how perfectly-judged Messrs Cave and Ellis‘s soundtrack for John Hillcoat’s The Proposition was. And you’d be forgiven for expecting more of the same, given that that movie was, to all intents and purposes, a Western itself in all but, well, lack of westerliness.
And to an extent, you’d be right- this is, after all, Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds and Grinderman sidekick Warren Ellis, leader of The Dirty Three, so obviously there’s a lot of piano and mournful violin, so that much at least is the same. This is a much less minimal affair, though – it’s still fairly sparse, but a lot meatier than The Proposition’s soundtrack, which at times sounded so delicate and fragmented it would blow away in a gust of wind, but was no less lovely for all that. For all its greatness, though, that soundtrack didn’t work so well divorced from the film (not that there was any reason why it should have had to, really) – The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, on the other hand, makes for a much more fulfilling listening experience.
Of course, there are similarities to The Dirty Three – it would be hard to have Ellis playing violin on anything and not be able to make that comparison somewhere, so distinctive is his sound. But it’s what’s done with it here that is interesting, and the way it often takes a back seat – in “Moving On”, it’s strapped to a bells and pizzicato backing which seems (possibly consciously) to evoke the graveyard duel from Morricone‘s music for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. Elsewhere, and for most of the album, it’s married to the most mournful piano melodies this side of Current 93‘s Soft Black Stars, with nice bassy cello parts doing the whole “soundtrack” thing. However, when Ellis’s violin DOES take the lead, as on “Song For Bob”, it is as gorgeously heartbreaking as anything he’s done with The Dirty Three, Cave’s piano (presumably) providing the perfect foil. As I say, I haven’t seen the film yet, but it’s hard to stop yourself trying to imagine what would be going on onscreen with each successive track. If the movie’s anything as good as I imagine it would be, listening to this, it should be really rather good indeed.
And if it isn’t? Hey, at least it has a kick-ass soundtrack. That’s more than can be said for a lot of movies.
