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| Track list 1. Moon Thrills 2. Moon Mall 3. Trench 4. Iron Swallow 5. Clockwork Tin Soldiers 6. Convergence 7. Nudnik Headache 8. Peartree 9. Splitter 10. Bode Radio/Glass Light/Broken Hearts 11. 24 Hour Charleston 12. Milky Drops From Heaven 13. Tehellet Running time: 44 minutes Released: 2003 |
I doubt very much I will like this one much. Picked up, of course, because of the artist being better known as one of the members of Radiohead, Bodysong is not something I have ever sat down to listen to before, except perhaps once when I bought it. Since then I suspect I have skipped every time a track came up if I was conscious of it and not otherwise engaged. Still - actually paying attention to items like this is what this project is all about, so can't complain!
This is apparently a soundtrack, but not to any film I had heard of. I can't remember how I came across it - some years after it was produced, but felt compelled to shell out once I had. The first track is pleasant enough I guess, sparse piano chords and a sense of emptiness imparted by high register trills. It took me a while to see the "h" in the title when I checked. Those trills grow more wearing as the track progresses and by the end I do not like it.
I am sitting down to this listen in procrastination over Christmas shopping. No good ideas; nothing that matches the ideas that I have well enough. I don't want to buy sweets for other people's children (family I will not see in person), so what? It has been that sort of weekend; unproductive and a struggle. I have upgraded to Windows 10, finally, however and now I get an annoying beep every time the track changes. Grr; sound alerts for sys-tray notifications. Something else to be disabled. A couple of clicks later and that is done, along with the second track - a short interlude which segues into Trench seamlessly (and with no beep!).
So far this album is exactly as unengaging as I was expecting it to be. Divorced of the context of the film to which it was created, these sounds are aimless and odd constructions, the sounds too individual to enjoy. Iron Swallow, for example, is shrill and yet sombre. A string lament coming on the back of space-scape type imagery created (at least in my mind) by the first three numbers, whilst Clockwork Tin Soldiers sounds like a conversation between The Clangers that was left on the cutting room floor over its first minute. The track then changes direction a fair bit, back to spacey, sci-fi sounds. I am sure the visuals gave good reason for these tonic shifts, but without them it just feels random. Convergence is all percussion - another different tone. I am seriously considering breaking form and just stopping the listen here, declaring the whole disc a casualty and moving on. As a listening experience this leaves a lot to be desired.
It really is unfair to pass comment on a soundtrack with no knowledge of what it was composed for like this. I can only assume that the vagaries of the film demanded such a definite lack of coherence and theme. It sounds like a sampler of samples for other musicians to pick up and do something with in places - some pattern or other that on its own is nothing like enough to carry a track, but which has a lot of potential if placed in the context of more composition. Alas here that never comes, so whilst Nudnik Headache has a really nice rhythm to start, that is all it has and, once you notice that, the charm of the rhythm starts to dissipate. I am sorry to say that judged on the soundtrack alone, Bodysong is a mess.
Just as I type that, Splitter starts. This has a really high tempo, drums, and brass. It is immediately a much more engaging track for the extra depth. The percussion is the structure here, the horns the interest - aside from when the former disappears and the trumpet solo we're presented with has all the appeal of a slap in the face. It is a brief moment in the middle of the track, which otherwise keeps the energy high, but it sums up the disc so far - an unannounced and unwelcome shift - and kills the track. I find myself wondering when it will end which, for a track under 4 minutes in length, is not a good sign. Considering I liked the first half of the number a lot, that is a real disappointment.
Hope for a track to stand out and demand to be kept is fading, but the opening to 24 Hour Charleston has a nice sense of threat to it, a dark demand. Unfortunately, and not for the first time, I find that the promise in the track is not backed up by and development so it runs the whole length on that initial form and allows you to see just how little is there. I suspect that this is one of those soundtracks that was very tightly wound to the film, simply because when you stand it alone it is so obviously... incomplete, lacking something. That invention or extra dimension that could turn what feels like a sonic mess into a carefully constructed counterpart. There are moments in some of these tunes which evoke really cool jazzy sounds but Greenwood is not a jazz man, and the tunes are not really jazz tunes, so strong foundations go undeveloped.
Would I reconsider cutting all of this if I saw and loved the film? Maybe; knowledge of how the soundtrack integrates, suits its subject, could fundamentally change my perception of it. However having looked it up briefly, I don't feel any need to go find something else to spend my time sat in front of enough to do so. I feel more than happy with the decision to simply cull this soundtrack from my library altogether. Some nice ideas, but not enough done with them; tonic shifts that were jarring, and poor man's jazz - I can't recommend it.
I am sitting down to this listen in procrastination over Christmas shopping. No good ideas; nothing that matches the ideas that I have well enough. I don't want to buy sweets for other people's children (family I will not see in person), so what? It has been that sort of weekend; unproductive and a struggle. I have upgraded to Windows 10, finally, however and now I get an annoying beep every time the track changes. Grr; sound alerts for sys-tray notifications. Something else to be disabled. A couple of clicks later and that is done, along with the second track - a short interlude which segues into Trench seamlessly (and with no beep!).
So far this album is exactly as unengaging as I was expecting it to be. Divorced of the context of the film to which it was created, these sounds are aimless and odd constructions, the sounds too individual to enjoy. Iron Swallow, for example, is shrill and yet sombre. A string lament coming on the back of space-scape type imagery created (at least in my mind) by the first three numbers, whilst Clockwork Tin Soldiers sounds like a conversation between The Clangers that was left on the cutting room floor over its first minute. The track then changes direction a fair bit, back to spacey, sci-fi sounds. I am sure the visuals gave good reason for these tonic shifts, but without them it just feels random. Convergence is all percussion - another different tone. I am seriously considering breaking form and just stopping the listen here, declaring the whole disc a casualty and moving on. As a listening experience this leaves a lot to be desired.
It really is unfair to pass comment on a soundtrack with no knowledge of what it was composed for like this. I can only assume that the vagaries of the film demanded such a definite lack of coherence and theme. It sounds like a sampler of samples for other musicians to pick up and do something with in places - some pattern or other that on its own is nothing like enough to carry a track, but which has a lot of potential if placed in the context of more composition. Alas here that never comes, so whilst Nudnik Headache has a really nice rhythm to start, that is all it has and, once you notice that, the charm of the rhythm starts to dissipate. I am sorry to say that judged on the soundtrack alone, Bodysong is a mess.
Just as I type that, Splitter starts. This has a really high tempo, drums, and brass. It is immediately a much more engaging track for the extra depth. The percussion is the structure here, the horns the interest - aside from when the former disappears and the trumpet solo we're presented with has all the appeal of a slap in the face. It is a brief moment in the middle of the track, which otherwise keeps the energy high, but it sums up the disc so far - an unannounced and unwelcome shift - and kills the track. I find myself wondering when it will end which, for a track under 4 minutes in length, is not a good sign. Considering I liked the first half of the number a lot, that is a real disappointment.
Hope for a track to stand out and demand to be kept is fading, but the opening to 24 Hour Charleston has a nice sense of threat to it, a dark demand. Unfortunately, and not for the first time, I find that the promise in the track is not backed up by and development so it runs the whole length on that initial form and allows you to see just how little is there. I suspect that this is one of those soundtracks that was very tightly wound to the film, simply because when you stand it alone it is so obviously... incomplete, lacking something. That invention or extra dimension that could turn what feels like a sonic mess into a carefully constructed counterpart. There are moments in some of these tunes which evoke really cool jazzy sounds but Greenwood is not a jazz man, and the tunes are not really jazz tunes, so strong foundations go undeveloped.
Would I reconsider cutting all of this if I saw and loved the film? Maybe; knowledge of how the soundtrack integrates, suits its subject, could fundamentally change my perception of it. However having looked it up briefly, I don't feel any need to go find something else to spend my time sat in front of enough to do so. I feel more than happy with the decision to simply cull this soundtrack from my library altogether. Some nice ideas, but not enough done with them; tonic shifts that were jarring, and poor man's jazz - I can't recommend it.
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