Juno Recommends Soundtracks November 2021

Review: If you've seen the movie Drive you'll realise how much this needed a reissue. Check the cost of College's bonafide synth pop anthem 'A Real Hero' on secondary marketplaces and you'll understand what we mean: not quite priceless, definitely inflated, but either way very expensive indeed. Of course buying the full LP will never get you the clout of the single pressing, but investing in this particular presentation gets you a stack more quality to play.

And some of the other work here is, frankly, spellbinding. The songs themselves are great, running the gamut from the stomp and spiral of 'Nightcall' by Kavinsky & Lovefoxx, to the show tune-esque 'Oh My Love' by Riz Ortolani, but really Cliff Martinez's original score is the bit we want to focus on. From the slow mo chug of 'Rubber Head' to the blissful, floating on a cloud towards a lovely sort of death ambience of 'He Had A Good Time'.

Review: Those with a deep knowledge of cult Italian horror movies should be aware of the work of Giulliano Sorgini, and in particular his soundtrack to Non Si Deve Profanre Il Sonno Dei Mortie (a movie known in English as both The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue and Let Sleeping Corpses Lie). This Four Flies Records' "45" boasts two of the most potent recordings from the soundtrack. On the A-side you'll find the movie's main theme, 'John Dalton Theme', a superb slab of zombified psych-funk laden with simmering horror strings, loose-limbed percussion solos, crunchy drum-breaks and toasty bass. Over o the flip you'll find 'Manchester M2 6LD', a stripped-back reprise version that replaces Sorgini's cut-glass strings with sustained Hammond organ chords. Happily, the killer groove and righteous drum solos remain in-tact.

Review: Facebook is rebranding as Meta and NASA wants to create clear plan of action for when we discover alien life, such is the likelihood of finding something out there in the great black beyond. None of which should convince you of our arrival in the future as much as either the dawn of the Anthropocene - an era of world history when the impact of humans on the natural world is greater than the impact of nature itself - or the fact we're now reviewing video game soundtracks.

And legitimately so. The biggest entertainment industry on the planet in terms of commercial value, it's shameful that, in some corners at least, the jury is still out on whether we can consider the likes of God of War a work of art. Listening to this Bear McCreary score alone is enough to explain what we mean. It's masterful, atmospheric, and incredibly sophisticated choral-classical stuff that many movies would envy.

Review: Whether you're reading this and thinking Christmas seems a way off, or here because there's a next day delivery and time is ticking, A Charlie Brown Christmas is quite possibly one of the most exquisite scores to the silly season you're likely to come across. Better yet, it's a complete curveball, with this Peanuts cartoon score hardly topping the list when it comes to famous Yuletide music.

Sophisticated stuff, imagine slow drinks in a late night jazz bar. Surprisingly sexy, refined, laidback to the point where you can almost see flames dancing in a fireplace, and shadows licking at the walls. Of course, we do get 'Hark, The Herald Angels Sing' and 'Christmas Time Is Here', taking us back to the best parts of school age winters gone by, both delivered via vocal choirs. But, overall, this is a truly tasteful example of how to do festive well.

Review: RECOMMENDED
At the end of the day John Carpenter could present us with infinite takes on the original Halloween tune - that creepy piano masterpiece - and we'd gobble up everything he has to offer. It's a simple case of four notes, or thereabouts, played in a repetitive loop, and it seems to conjure the most disturbing mental images you can imagine. A stroke of genius, you might say.

Halloween Kills is essentially the reprise of all that made the original movie score so powerful. There's not much here that didn't feature in the inaugural franchise outing, but in 2021 the raw and decidedly pared back atmospheres have been built on, expanded, born again, but crucially not ruined. Is John Carpenter the greatest film musician of all time? Hans Zimmer may disagree, but we say "of course".