The Necks - The Boys OST

The Necks are an Australian instrumental 3 piece who have been around for over 20 years. The basic formula is piano, bass and drums, and they display a mastery of both their own instruments and their overall sound. This is not expressed in explosive virtuoso passages, even though they definitely play jazz tinged music: they play acoustic instruments, but they also explore the usually minimal themes of their music, with the same kind of repetition and recapitulation of motifs and themes that you would normally find in jazz. However, they usually do it in an elegant and sedate way that owes as much to post rock as it does to any jazz master, and on this album there are understated embellishments, such as small blasts of distorted guitar, some reversed atmospheric echo, and wonderful electric organ. Often their albums and gigs will be a single piece of music, but on this disc, the soundtrack to 1998 Australian film The Boys, there are seven. This does include three ten minute plus tracks to give you a good illustration of their MO, not to mention three versions of the main theme, which is superb - a brooding and noirish piano led theme, full of menace and rippling with atmosphere. Although many tracks and the addition of extra noises to the mix may make this a more expansive and less representative Necks album, they also help it to be fantastically listenable.

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Geinoh Yamashirogumi - Akira OST

Fabulous soundtrack from what is still one of the best anime films ever, in my opinion. It's scary to think that this came out in 1988. From the opening peal of thunder on 'Kaneda' this is spine tingling stuff, as a chorus of beautifully musical drums and wooden percussion introduces some brilliantly arranged choral work. It's pretty unique and breathtaking, and one of my favourite tracks ever. The themes are reprised with variations on the epic last track 'Requiem', which adds some serial/minimal keyboards, and even more layers of awesome choral lines. The whole album is a brilliant exploration of what can be done with tuned woody percussion, bells, drums and voices, with some additional sampling and sequencing - the almost techno explosion of rhythm that is 'The Battle Against The Clowns', with voices chopped in, and tiny beacons of melody. There are also the more traditionally synthy sounds on 'Winds Over Neo Tokyo', and the whole album blends these styles in a perfect balance, and the result is a unified suite of almost modern classical composition.
I always thought Geinoh Yamashirogumi was a person, but it's a musical collective. So I'm off to search the web for some more of their output, and I think another viewing of Akira is in order.
There is a shorter Akira soundtrack; this one is the 9 track, 56 minute one.

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Kopernik - Kopernik

Released on Eastern Developments in 2003, this really should have been one of the first posts on this blog. I love this album, and it is a unique and totally under-appreciated gem. A duo, Kopernik (follow this link for better words than mine) have released nothing since, which is a terrible shame.
This falls somewhere between soundtrack, post rock, ambient and modern classical. Dominated by sonourously bowed bass and shimmering string arrangements, it's a brilliantly recorded and engineered album. Wisps of backwards samples, carefully used vocal snippets of voice and choir and assorted acoustic instruments are all used to perfectly augment the themes. The opener 'Ondoyant Et Divers' encapsulates the sound - a simple and beautiful plucked bass line over some backwards pulsing, then what sounds like a woodwind ensemble swells as the bass switches to bowed, and the piece gradually drifts into a glorious peace. The style is gloriously simple, although 'Man, Myth and Magic' begins with oriental flourishes, what sounds like a dulcimer, and the kind of proggy bass work heard on Eno's mid 70s rock albums, although this gives way to a wonder-filled string arrangement. There are light Eastern influences throughout, melodically; but like the electronic sound manipulation, they are always understated.
I don't really know what these chaps have been up to in the interim - I just look out for a new Kopernik album. Hopefully they are getting tons of soundtrack, or at least engineering/production work that they clearly have the talent for. I actually bought this on cd as well as LP, because I wanted to preserve my LP. It's a magnificent album.

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Steroid Maximus - Ectopia

Excellent 2002 instrumental album by Jim Thirlwell of Foetus fame. This is a very soundtracky affair - I can definitely see much of this backing a sleazy B-schlocker, although it's more like a collection of themes, however, as most of the tracks are too in-your-face to languish in the background. It calls to mind the genre mish-mash of Tipsy, and has lots of brash spy movie type motifs that seem to have leaked in, along with plenty of odd and disconcerting elements, composed in an often hectic mix. Good stuff.

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