REVIEW: Various Artists, In Your Ear (Independent Film
Channel)
- Bill Holmes
Music for film and television falls into three distinct camps: the score, the hit compilation and the character music. Record companies incessantly push the second upon the listener as well as the filmmaker, for most "soundtrack" albums are merely a collection of trendy songs that may have little to do with the film itself. Many times the featured song only appears during the closing credits, if at all! The scores, when in the right hands (John Williams, Randy Newman, Danny Elfman, etc.) are a truer emotional bond with the visual presentation, but most don't sell. In the populist's eyes, the "character pieces" combine the worst elements of both - little known songs from usually little seen movies. Yet here are where some of the gutsiest, most artistic interpretive sounds are being made, often on a budget that couldn't cover a gaffer's lunch at the commissary. I'm not talking Dawson's Creek and Felicity music, either; a vehicle which has usurped MTV as the best marketing opportunity to reach white teenage girls. No, this is more Homicide territory, where work from a wide variety of mostly esoteric artists is used to enhance scenes rather than buy time between them.
The Independent Film Channel is a godsend to those cable subscribers who can get it; an oasis in the popular desert where John Lurie and Jim Jarmusch are household words. A majority of the films were made on a comparative shoestring budget, so you can imagine how few dollars are available for the music. In other words, you won't be hearing any Diane Warren or Desmond Child songs. Instead, unknown musicians and songwriters share soundscapes with artists like Tom Waits and Morphine who put their hearts before their wallets. This collection of eleven diverse cuts stands strongly on its own, but is also an enticing invitation to check out some of the great film work being created out of the main arena.
Waits, who has worked on both sides of the camera, has one of the most emotionally resonant voices on the planet - "Good Old World" (from Jarmusch's Night On Earth) is riveting. Ditto another acquired taste, Shane MacGowan, with "The Old Main Drag"; a painful but absorbing shanty recorded with the Pogues. Morphine, a favorite of Homicide viewers, uses their unorthodox instrumentation and style to provide a perfect soundtrack for urban desperation. The aforementioned John Lurie is represented by the themes from Manny & Lo, ably abetted by Marc Ribot and Medeski, Martin & Wood. Not all works come from the dark side, though - Victoria Williams' helium pipes grace "Love," and Hub Moore's "Walk Away" is lower case power pop.
In Your Ear will probably sell about as well as some of these artists do - poorly - but those looking for a viable alternative never cared about the Billboard charts, anyway. Whether this collection brings back memories of great films you've seen or opens a door to a world you know little about, you'll discover that there's nothing second rate going on here.
