(Nothing/Interscope)
"Imagine someone grabbing a piece of paper and drawing a box with a wave of flurry lines extending out from the top, that looked something like snakes, and saying, 'That is the sound I want, but on a highway,'" says Trent Reznor, recanting David Lynch's conception of the music for his latest foray into altered reality: Lost Highway. Reznor was commissioned by Lynch to produce and contribute to the soundtrack, but it won't be his first - he did the same for the Natural Born Killers soundtrack a couple years back.
The Lost Highway soundtrack album is a surprisingly well matched combination of more traditionally 'soundtrack' pieces done by experienced soundtrack composers Barry Adamson and Angelo Badalamenti, who actually score rather untraditional pieces of greater rhythm and a sonic quality that establishes a dense, almost quagmirish mood. Of course, the album is bound to be a big seller based on the success of "The Perfect Drug," a track exclusively made for Lost Highway by Nine Inch Nails (fronted, of course, by Reznor - and recently voted the #1 Most Essential Band by Spin Magazine). Besides the NIN track, Trent himself composed two soundtrack pieces: "Videodrones; Questions" is an ambient lead-in for "The Perfect Drug," "Driver Down" is a hyperactive, climactic point near the end of the soundtrack.
David Bowie's "I'm Deranged," a song he wrote with Brian Eno for his 1995 comeback, Outside, appears on the album in two parts - beginning and ending the whole works. This is somewhat disappointing, since the first part of the song at the album's beginning is cut off most awkwardly, and returned to as a "reprise" at the end. Nonetheless, it fits like a glove into the dark myriad of moods comprising the soundtrack.
"Eye" by Smashing Pumpkins has been received with mixed sentiments, and its combination of Billy Corgan's vocals, a fuzzy guitar, a smooth synth hop, and a drum track derivative of low-budget German techno circa 1983 can be somewhat off-putting, and sounds less like the Pumpkins than an early one-off Reznor recording. Still, it feels very much at home on the album despite its apparent tackiness.
Lou Reed performs a cover of "This Magic Moment," originally recorded for a Doc Pomus tribute album, Til The Night is Gone. Marilyn Manson's tracks ("Apple of Sodom" and a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "I Put A Spell On You") are typical of previous Manson material: 'creepy,' slow music punctuated by sudden exploding chorus of loud, screaming noise. Also fairly run-of-the-mill is Rammstein's contribution, screaming German metal powerhouses "Rammstein" and "Hierate Mich," which, while not particularly interesting by themselves, are fit into the soundtrack quite strategically well, just as the rest of the pieces.
The biggest disappointment, however, is the exclusion of This Mortal Coil's "Song To The Siren" in the soundtrack album, which the Lost Highway webpage includes in the song list for the film. That aside, the album is great. It certainly surpasses most other soundtrack releases in quality, production, and thematic development, especially other soundtrack albums that have tried unsuccessfully to bring together traditional soundtrack-ish instrumentals and more song-oriented tracks (i.e. the Judge Dredd soundtrack, which presented 5 or 6 songs in one section, and the classical soundtrack in another, on the same CD). Lynch said that "half of the film is picture, the other half is sound." Judging on the strength of the latter, the film should be hotly anticipated and well received.
An EP containing remixes of "The Perfect Drug" by the Orb, Jack Dangers (Meat Beat Manifesto), Goldie, and others will soon be released on Nothing Records. You can check out the excellent Lost Highway movie and soundtrack website at http://www.lost-highway.com.
