{"id":583,"date":"2011-08-23T05:39:10","date_gmt":"2011-08-23T10:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=583"},"modified":"2026-03-23T08:33:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T12:33:53","slug":"cd-review-fall-on-your-sword-another-earth-ost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/08\/23\/cd-review-fall-on-your-sword-another-earth-ost\/","title":{"rendered":"CD Review: Fall on Your Sword – Another Earth (OST)"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a filmmaker chooses a single artist to provide soundtrack music, he\/she is taking a big risk. This approach stands in direct contrast to the tried-and-true method (popular in the 80s) of assembling a bunch of hits and potential hits by au courant<\/em> pop stars, slapping a cover on it, and raking in the ancillary sales.<\/p>\n

The advantage to working with one artist, however, is clear. The music is more often than not composed specifically for the film, so some sort of thematic linking occurs. There\u2019s the unity of vision that comes with working with one writer\/performer. But quite often the result of this approach is a collection of music that works well as the film\u2019s literal soundtrack, but less so as music standing on its own.<\/p>\n

Mike Cahill<\/strong>\u2019s new film Another Earth<\/em> is sci-fi\/fantasy, but apparently it\u2019s more character- and story-driven than it is built around some exotic imagined technology. He chose to work with the duo of Will Bates<\/strong> and Phil Mossman<\/strong>, collectively known as Fall On Your Sword<\/strong>. The duo is most well-known for their work on television commercials and similar projects; this album represents their first full-length release. The music FOYS has created is a sort of organic take on synthetic sounds.<\/p>\n

Lots of blobbing analog synths bleat their way along across the CD titled Music From the Motion Picture Another Earth<\/em>. Skittering, stuttering, pulsing\u2026those are the sort of adjectives best used to convey the vibe found on these nineteen tracks. Primarily instrumental, the tracks fold in some lovely cello, violin and viola amidst the synthesizer washes.<\/p>\n

Some of the pieces are static (as in, barely moving), and these \u2013 especially \u201cNaked on the Ice\u201d \u2013 call to mind some of Brian Eno<\/strong>\u2019s work on his landmark Another Green World<\/em>. Some lovely, wordlessly yearning vocalizing courtesy of Inna Barmash<\/strong> adds to the mood, especially when laid atop some choir samples and throbbing synth arpeggios.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a contemplative, sorrowful ambience to several of these tracks, most notably the brief, piano-centric \u201cThe House Theme\u201d and \u201cMaking Contact.\u201d The vaguely worldbeat percussion feel of \u201cI am Over There\u201d creates a sort of a dialed-down house\/rave feel; one can imagine a bunch of strobelight-entranced ravers, but instead of dancing, they\u2019re lounging in oversized, cushy chairs.<\/p>\n

As one might expect from these brief descriptions, the tracks on Another Earth<\/em> float by, tumbling into one another. The feel of each track is (one imagines; I haven\u2019t seen the film) suited to the concurrent onscreen scene, all of which suggests this is a sad and melancholy bit of filmmaking.<\/p>\n

As a blending of classical drawing-room instrumentation and modern technology in an ambient setting, Another World<\/em> is quite successful. As an aural background (for the film, or for whatever you might be doing while the CD spins) it\u2019s also effective. As the focus of close, attentive listening, it\u2019s perhaps something of a mixed bag, but on balance it\u2019s reasonably rewarding on that score as well.<\/p>\n

Update\/clarification: additional music by other composers is on the film’s (literal) soundtrack but not on this CD.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a filmmaker chooses a single artist to provide soundtrack music, he\/she is taking a big risk. This approach stands in direct contrast to the tried-and-true method (popular in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31090,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions\/31090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}