Juno Recommends Soundtracks April 2021

Review: Spike Jonze's Her is, quite frankly, one of the most profoundly moving movies of the last decade. Posing the question we should all be asking - what happens when people, in this case a writer who is paid to pen personal letters from clients to their loved ones, start falling in love with their computer operating systems? The answer is an existential journey through the greatest unanswerable quandaries of all time; what makes us human? At what point do we become conscious? How long until Siri becomes truly useful?

The soundtrack probably didn't stand out to as many people as the plot and the cinematography, but as this hugely accomplished album version proves, Arcade Fire and Owen Pallet did an incredible job with creating an original score of music that lives up to the ambition of the film - through soft piano sonatas, spiralling synthesised crescendos, and achingly beautiful strings you can see the gamut of human emotions.

Review: It would be fair to say that Roy Budd's score for 1974 crime thriller The Marseilles Contract (The Destructors) is not one of his most celebrated soundtracks - though those who pay close attention to these things frequently cite it as one of his best. Here it appears on vinyl for the first time, allowing us to savour the composer's incredible arrangements and interesting instrumental choices (including, somewhat surprisingly, some formidably alien early synthesizer sounds) for the first time since it was released on CD back in 1999. There are tons of atmospheric, jazz-tinged funk breaks workouts scattered throughout the set, alongside some surprisingly exotic interludes, suitably cinematic piano laments, suspenseful mood pieces and tabla-fired numbers.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Christopher Nolan's latest reason to consider psychotherapeutic treatment, Tenet, is probably best known for leaving viewers completely baffled as to exactly what happened. A movie that makes the one of the director's other epics - the time and space melting Inception - feel positively straightforward, the ability to form your own conclusions is what makes his work so memorable.

Thankfully, though, given the role music plays in our lives compared with cinema, Ludwig Goransson's original soundtrack for Tenet probably won't leave you struggling to sleep for nights on end, troubled as to how certain plot lines made any sense. It will, however, leave you in awe at the Swedish composer's vision. A veritable triumph of contemporary electronica-classical-something, it's powerful, evocative and incredibly accomplished from start to finish, and should be filed under E, for Essential.

Review: The Au Par Girls was a British sex comedy in 1972 starring Gabrielle Drake (yep, Nick Drake's sister) and Richard O'Sullivan (yep, Gilbert O'Sullivan's brother!). The music is fun, sexy and swinging with 17 brilliant tracks all filled to the brim with jet-set jazz vibes, groovy and scatty vocals and string instrumentals. It immediately takes you back to that era and brings a smile to your face as it does so. It must be said that the film itself is no longer OK because of its outdated view of life, rights, sex and taste, but the soundtrack at least is well worth having.

Review: For those who like the more curious records out there, this is a real grail. It's an easy to listen to fusion of French chanson and Japanese avant-garde experimental electronics with singer Pierre Barouh leading the way in a studio full of mad talents including Ryuichi Sakamoto of YMO, Yasuaki Shimizu and more. It was recorded in Tokyo in 1982 and is a gentle, free-spirited record of gentle intrigue that mixes nouveau chanson, jazz, bossa, ambient and minimalism into a magical melting pot. Though Barouh passed away in December 2016, his legacy will live on for ever in this most fascinating musical document.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Canada has long since been something of secret electronic music hotspot. Or at least one that, in a stereotypically Canadian way, doesn't really want to impose itself on you, but is instead happy to let you discover its abundant wonders for yourself. US of A this is not. Montreal-based Sarah Davachi is a fitting example of those wonders, with All My Circles Run not only a quietly
powerful epic but also album number four from a talent more people should know by now.

Steeped in a slow, brooding atmosphere, 'For Voice' is the kind of choral ambient mood that should soundtrack snowbound thrillers and murder mysteries, and in many ways exemplifies what Davachi has done here - focusing on overall feelings and sensations by way of highly accomplished musical phrases that layer, loop and refrain to pull you in tighter and deeper.

Review: The masterful soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone penned the score for the rather odd and off-beat mondo movie I Malamondo very early in his career. It is about the youth of the early 1960s and is a film that has long been out of print. Visually and conceptually it was a successful film that was of course brought to life by the work of this great Italian. Musically it is a sort of pre-curser to the spaghetti western style with which he became synonymous, with surf sounds, jazz, horns and choral vocal chants all adding the detail.