Back catalogue: Soundtracks

Review: RECOMMENDED
If 2020, and the coronavirus pandemic, did anything good for music it was forcing a long overdue reevaluation of the role technology plays. Video games had a bumper year, and it didn't take long for the historic relationship between computer entertainment and contemporary musical compositions to start finding favour with content-starved editorial teams.

They say there's no turning back, ever, and as such the smart money is on albums like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice not just becoming more commonplace, but taken more seriously going forward. Soundtrack to Activision's critically acclaimed video game of the same name, in which players take on the role of a shinobi in feudal Japan, as you'd expect it's a deeply atmospheric collection that invokes misty mountaintops, shadows dancing off bamboo and patient heroics. An OST equal to any major movie.

Review: Before he passed away in 1975 aged just 43, jazz musician and composer Oliver Nelson created a swathe of scores for film and TV, most notably Ironside and The Six Million Dollar man. This limited-edition release, the 19th in the 'Universal Pictures Film Music Classics Collection' brings two of Nelson's big-screen scores to CD for the first time. Tracks one to 18 form an expanded soundtrack to Western flick Death of a Gunfighter, a score in which Nelson focused on elegiac strings, melancholic motifs, suspenseful interludes and sweeping orchestration. The remainder of the CD presents the soundtrack to Skullduggery, a largely forgotten 'jungle adventure'. Nelson's music for this is more dashing, daring, upbeat and expansive, with extensive use of densely layered, tribal style percussion.

Review: For many people of a certain generation. Shawshank Redemption was the first grown-up film they ever saw which is why it is atop so many best-ever lists. No matter when you see it though, it remains a classic with an engaging story, great characters and an immersive soundtrack. To mark the 30th anniversary of the great movie, that soundtrack has now been pressed up on limited, numbered 180-gram audiophile black & white marbled vinyl with an insert. Plenty of the film's musical motifs and most memorable scenes feature and make for a great stand-alone listen.

Review: "A stunning use of Poe's work as the Cliffs Notes to his own majestic, intricate brand of storytelling, Flanagan's The Fall of the House of Usher showcases what the One Percent is willing to sacrifice to remain in high places." So says Vanity Fair of the Netflix Original Series, The Fall of the House Of Usher, a decade-spanning narrative that nods to several of the master horror author's most famous nightmares while telling tales of the wealthy and wealthier. It's typically polished-looking stuff from the country that can't stop making polished-looking dramas for video-on-demand services. But how about the score? Written by the Newton Brothers, regular collaborators of Gothic Horror creator Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House), the music could loosely be described as contemporary classical, and certainly does well in setting a scene and creating a brooding atmosphere, even if you're not actually watching the show.

Review: Definitely not to be confused with the 2005 Neo-noir US movie of the same name, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was a 1966 Eurospy comedy directed by Duccio Tessari. The plot, which contains several genre tropes, revolves around a retired espionage agent who receives a death sentence after being caught trying to steal L1 million dollars. At the last minute, he's offered a reprieve, if he can steal a secret formula before terrorist Mr X does. We won't divulge what happens next, but as spy movies tend to, there are plenty of curveballs and red herrings thrown at us. Bruno Nicolai, a powerhouse of Italian cinema during this time, whose tracks have found their way into Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 2 and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, delivers an archetypal score for this cinematic canon, packed with tension building percussive movements, swooning and sweeping string and woodwind pop, and even the odd gentle slow dance.

Review: While the world instantly remembers Ennio Morricone's heroic contribution to the world of movie scores at the height of the Spaghetti Western trend - Italian produced cowboy flicks set on the frontier of an early United States - less people will jump to the name Bruno Nicolai. And yet, here we are, faced with one of the greatest soundtracks ever written for any film in the canon. Archetypal of the genre, Nicolai conducted many of his close friend Morricone's scores, and this betrays what to expect from this masterpiece. The soundscapes are grand and pompous, open and mysterious, edgy and tense. Varied, but always the aural equivalent of panning across almost-unchartered plains and seeing a solitary rider appear on the horizon. If that sounds remotely entertaining, this is an essential.

Review: A Monster's Expedition + Earlier Adventures is a double disc collection of music from four different video games (namely A Monster's Expedition, Sokobond, Cosmic Express and A Good Snowman Is Hard to Build) all composed by Eli Rainsberry, Allison Walker, Nick Dymond, and Priscilla Snow. Each one is utterly unique to the game and each one comes laden with beautiful soothing atmospheres delicately coloured with ponderous and whimsical melodies that will distract you from whatever you are doing they are so gorgeous. This is music to get lost in and it comes with superbly serene artwork from Andre Rodrigues.