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| Track list: 1. The Land of Nod 2. Through the Screen 3. Before the Calm 4. Lynn's Theme 5. Alice Enters 6. The Wait 7. A Family Stroll 8. Poland 9. Out to Sea 10. Autumn Day 11. Everything Must Change Running time: 33 minutes Released: 2012 |
Another soundtrack to a film I have not seen. A theme emerging strongly in the discs covered to date. We are back in Iceland again, though this time just for the music. Depending on how this is, I might buy some more of Arnalds' soundtracks but probably not. I expect to quite like this, but not be blown away - how right or wrong shall I be?
As I hit play, I am immediately struck by the tone. Much more sombre and downbeat than I would have expected given the title. The first track is named The Land of Nod, so I was not expecting anything bombastic and big but I was, perhaps naively, expecting a little more positivity. It is instead a dark track that devolves to static. The next tune clears the decks, a moving piano piece - slow and sad. And short. The majority of these tracks are short, and there are not a lot of them. Perhaps it is a very short movie. It is pretty much Arnalds doing what Arnalds does - and if you like his themes as I do there is a fair bit to like. The constant sad edge to things does run the risk of grating after a while, of wearing one down, but the tracks are beautiful in isolation.
Together they blur into much of a muchness, at least for my sleeplessness-addled brain after a late night yesterday and a long day today. I toyed with doing a post for the gig I was at, but shot it down as it would (sadly) ram home just how few I go to recently.
The Wait is the first track over 3 minutes. It is heavily string themed, mournful as ever with lots of pauses between the sighs of bow on hair. The theme is picked up by keys as the track rolls into the next one, a link that I quite like as I notice it for the first time. One thing I will say is that I love the way Arnalds uses those pauses - either brief silences or longer notes that hold pause-like before being let up and something else played instead. Those spaces, hesitations, are constructs that I have come to really appreciate as I have grown older, as I have learned to listen to what is not there, as well as what is and accept silences or inactivity as part of compositions.
Poland has a happier air, not actually happy, but not immediately sad either. Simple piano tune, warmer sounds, wrapped in the familiar strings like a blanket to ward off the cold and dark... until the keys stop and we are back to a very similar sound to those we have been hearing before. There is less bite to the notes though.
Drive. There is finally some drive injected. Out to Sea builds up in an urgent manner, building, threatening, delighting before receding. I was drifting away mentally when I suddenly cottoned on to what was happening and snapped back. Easily my favourite track so far, the change of pace being very welcome even if it is not sustained. The sounds have filled in a bit in the latter half of the disc, more depth, less stark, lonely strings and more melodic harmony. The pauses and the space given to each refrain are diminished or gone and the tracks, whilst longer, go by quicker as a result. I am glad, for as much as the pauses were delightful, the increase in depth and notation means there is more going on to listen in to and out for. It also means that the soundtrack manages to change tone at the right time to retain interest and avoid becoming too much of a one-tone affair as looked possible early on. I do not think I have consciously heard as much staccato playing of strings as on Everything Must Change, where they provide the core structure around which other movements wander. Of course, at the point I type that, they subside and the track melts away until only a haunting theme harking back to the first few tracks emerges, bringing the album to a close on a note similar to how it began.
As I hit play, I am immediately struck by the tone. Much more sombre and downbeat than I would have expected given the title. The first track is named The Land of Nod, so I was not expecting anything bombastic and big but I was, perhaps naively, expecting a little more positivity. It is instead a dark track that devolves to static. The next tune clears the decks, a moving piano piece - slow and sad. And short. The majority of these tracks are short, and there are not a lot of them. Perhaps it is a very short movie. It is pretty much Arnalds doing what Arnalds does - and if you like his themes as I do there is a fair bit to like. The constant sad edge to things does run the risk of grating after a while, of wearing one down, but the tracks are beautiful in isolation.
Together they blur into much of a muchness, at least for my sleeplessness-addled brain after a late night yesterday and a long day today. I toyed with doing a post for the gig I was at, but shot it down as it would (sadly) ram home just how few I go to recently.
The Wait is the first track over 3 minutes. It is heavily string themed, mournful as ever with lots of pauses between the sighs of bow on hair. The theme is picked up by keys as the track rolls into the next one, a link that I quite like as I notice it for the first time. One thing I will say is that I love the way Arnalds uses those pauses - either brief silences or longer notes that hold pause-like before being let up and something else played instead. Those spaces, hesitations, are constructs that I have come to really appreciate as I have grown older, as I have learned to listen to what is not there, as well as what is and accept silences or inactivity as part of compositions.
Poland has a happier air, not actually happy, but not immediately sad either. Simple piano tune, warmer sounds, wrapped in the familiar strings like a blanket to ward off the cold and dark... until the keys stop and we are back to a very similar sound to those we have been hearing before. There is less bite to the notes though.
Drive. There is finally some drive injected. Out to Sea builds up in an urgent manner, building, threatening, delighting before receding. I was drifting away mentally when I suddenly cottoned on to what was happening and snapped back. Easily my favourite track so far, the change of pace being very welcome even if it is not sustained. The sounds have filled in a bit in the latter half of the disc, more depth, less stark, lonely strings and more melodic harmony. The pauses and the space given to each refrain are diminished or gone and the tracks, whilst longer, go by quicker as a result. I am glad, for as much as the pauses were delightful, the increase in depth and notation means there is more going on to listen in to and out for. It also means that the soundtrack manages to change tone at the right time to retain interest and avoid becoming too much of a one-tone affair as looked possible early on. I do not think I have consciously heard as much staccato playing of strings as on Everything Must Change, where they provide the core structure around which other movements wander. Of course, at the point I type that, they subside and the track melts away until only a haunting theme harking back to the first few tracks emerges, bringing the album to a close on a note similar to how it began.
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