REVIEW: Moby, I Like To Score (Elektra)
- Robin Lapid
So you're at the movie theater, watching that climactic scene where Pacino finally faces DeNiro in a cinematic showdown, and all you're thinking is, "What's that cool song in the background?" It's probably Moby - techno godfather, remix master to the stars, and, more recently, music contributor to feature films.
On his latest release, I Like To Score , Moby has asembled a top-notch collection of tracks featured in films like "Scream," "Heat," and the upcoming "Double Tap," for which he is writing the entire score. Moby draws on his arsenal of sonic tricks and creates some epic-sounding techno and ambient tracks, incorporating angelic hymns, sensual moans, and a slew of seriously groovy, hard-driving beats. The dance-friendly "re-version" of the "James Bond Theme" will likely garner him the most mainstream attention after years of notoriety in the burgeoning dance scene.
But there's more to the album than stylish action-movie theme songs. The eerie re-working of the "Twin Peaks" theme on the track, "Go," befits a hyperspeed David Lynch landscape, like a dream where you're constantly running but always staying in the same place. Other standout tracks weave through moods ranging from subtle to frenetic. There's the ethereal "God Moving Over the Face of the Water" or the hard-core dance rhythms of "Ah-Ah" or his formidably anguished cover of Joy Division's "New Dawn Fades." Moby provides a uniquely modern spin on the movie soundtrack, offering atmospheric, echoing landscapes filtered through with distinctly human elements, whether it's a human wail or whisper or moan, synth strings that weep provocatively, or Moby's own bleeding vocals.
As a compilation album there's less cohesiveness - the songs move along like different parts of different movies, naturally, although they all maintain a similarly cinematic feel. The album doesn't rival his diverse masterpiece, Everything Is Wrong , but I Like To Score is a good primer in the type of music that brought Moby to his well-deserved prominence in the rave scene. Moby has said he wishes there were more "techno anthems" - he should just listen to his album.
