Back catalogue: Soundtracks

Review: Don Peake's soundtrack for Wes Craven's : The People Under The Stairs now makes its first ever appearance on vinyl. The classic movie came in 1991 and composer Peake made a perfectly spooky and atmospheric score. Outside of this he was a guitarist and member of the Wrecking Crew who has also played on records by greats such as Marvin Gaye, Everly Brothers and John Lennon. His diverse range of talents really shine through here from the screeching moments on unsettling intensity to the broody passages of mood bulldog via the more serene moments of clam before the storm.

Review: 3-time Golden Glober-nominated composer Daniel Pemberton is the man behind the original score for The Trial of the Chicago 7, which was directed by Academy Award winner filmmaker Aaron Sorkin. The film focuses on the story of how a peaceful protest turned into a violent clash with police at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Sacha Baron Cohen, Jeremy Strong and Eddie Redmayne are amongst its stars and the mostly instrumental music is as rousing, confrontational and powerful as you would expect. The opening and closing original songs with Celest are by far the album's crowning glories.

Review: The Moving Music label continues to unearth some ridiculously odd and inspired Norwegian movie soundtracks. Their latest is taken from 1978's Operasjon Cobra, a "youth movie" with a plot that involves a group of Oslo teenagers foiling a terror plot. The soundtrack, which appears to be one of the first to be completed by obscure Norwegian composer (and former prog rocker) Pete Knutsen, flits between Blaxploitation-inspired jazz-funk, cheery, horn-and-Clavinet-heavy post-disco instrumentals, experimental jazz, creepy synthesizer soundscapes, jazz guitar-rich ambient and heavy funk-rock. Throughout, the production is admirably lo-fi, with Knutsen keeping the tracks largely free of effects or post-production trickery.

Review: If you've not seen Des Morts then buckle up and prepare for something you'll never, ever forget. The critically acclaimed documentary is one of very few films to directly deal with the unspeakable of life - death. During the course of the running time, you encounter doctors desperately trying to save a stab victim, a body melting in the heat of a crematorium chamber, the execution of a Philippine guerrilla, people who are about to be no more, and those they will leave behind.
Fear of all this is a largely Western condition, but humans have a universal obsession with death that stays with us until all questions are eventually answered when we finally die. Composer Alain Pierre does his best to convey this mystery, awe, and unknowing via a soundtrack that runs between outtakes from the film, synthesiser overtures, field recordings, religious chants and more.

Review: Translated into English, The Novice is a 1975 Italian movie about a young chap returning to his provincial hometown to visit his dying uncle, who is being cared for by a night nurse who also happens to be a novice nun, played by the remarkably beautiful and seductive Gloria Guida. An erotic comedy, you can guess where the plot goes, but the casting of Lionel Stander as ageing relative is interesting.

The US actor was memorialised in Eric Bentley's play Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been after his famously uncooperative testimony before the House of Un-American Activities, responsible for exposing communists in the early days of the Cold War. Subsequently blacklisted from TV, film, and radio in his homeland, he eventually moved to Europe, first setting up shop in London, where he would make flicks for decades, often pretty obscure ones. This is one, and the music is wonderfully kitsch, Wurlitzer-packed elevator stuff, so if that's your bag so is this.

Review: John Powell could almost be seen as the Hans Zimmer of animated movies. His oeuvre to date includes Antz, The Road To Eldorado, Chicken Run, Shrek, Robots, Ice Age 2 and 4, Happy Feet, Dr Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!, the first two Kung Fu Panda films, and Mars Needs Moms, among many others. Including the entire How To Train Your Dragon trilogy.
Hugely successful, the action packed adventures of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III - a young Viking and heir to the throne of Berk - really needs equally exciting music to accompany it. That's exactly what we get here, with a classically-inspired swashbuckling score doing more than setting the scene: some tracks hark back to the golden days of kids movie soundtracks, when the songs themselves told large chunks of the narrative.

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.