Thomas Newmann - "Meet Joe Black Soundtrack"

As modern soundtrack scores go, the quality can be hit or miss, but Thomas Newman's work is almost always something to get excited about, as evidenced in the Oscar-nominated The Shawshank Redemption, Road to Perdition, and the title theme for Six Feet Under. His score for Meet Joe Black contains the seeds of beauty that would fully flower on his score for American Beauty, the next film he scored and a high point of his career. "Whisper of a Thrill," the soaring romantic theme, is a perfect distillation of the film's emotional plot, its yearning melody shadowing Joe Black's (Brad Pitt) love for the beautiful Susan (played by Claire Forlani) and its ultimate futility. As romantic themes go, Newman's ranks as a recent classic that captures both the initial rush of love and also the devastating crush of its leaving. Newman skillfully weaves this theme into the rest of the score, and its sweeping sentimentality is flexible enough to be incorporated into other melodic themes, such as the denouement of "Someone Else." For the most part, gentle strings and woodwinds dominate, with gentle piano work reserved for special, heart-tugging moments. But the score is also quite playful, as on "Peanut Butter Man," where a flute meanders over bouncing strings, and also in the quick, percussive staccato of the middle-eight. This is an excellent score, an achievement from any composer, and something that ranks up near the top of Thomas Newman's work.

Growing - "Color Wheel"

Wow. This band only gets better. Initially on drone/indie label Kranky, Growing have moved over to Troubleman Unlimited's sub-label Megablade, and with that move their sound has left behind the wall-of-noise blissouts of The Sky's Run Into The Sea for a lighter, textured ambient drone that at times approaches both metal and progressive rock. Growing have (excuse me here) "grown" from their earlier stun-volume buzzing into subtler vibrations that are almost pastoral, but interspersed with some metallic aggression.

Opening track "Fancy Period" fades in with some faint guitar sprinkles and swirling synths, sounding like it could turn into a hip cover of Yes' "Close to the Edge." But the ecstatic drone is soon subsumed by a stuttering, staccato fuzz that, over the song's ten minutes, begins to dominate. The battle between these two opposing forces (pastoral drone versus metallic blur) characterize the entire album. To see which one wins, listen to the final two minutes of closer "Green Pasture," where way-too-loud buzz saw guitars completely obliterate the blissed-out smear of guitars that preceded it. For those two minutes , this album drops the happy droning and gets truly scary. Played loud, Growing's Kevin Doria and Joe DeNardo's instruments meld into one majestic tone that devolves from Sunn O)))-inspired metallic hum to Oren Ambarchi-esque ambient carpeting.

Much like previous efforts, Color Wheel sounds fantastic at top volume. Like other bands with similar aesthetics (like perhaps Hammock, with their new Sleep-over series), when given three simple things: space, time, and volume, Growing make their guitar and synthesizer setup sound like an orchestra.

Klaus Schulze - "Body Love II"

Recorded in 1976 and released the next year, Body Love, Vol. 2 was intended as a soundtrack for a pornographic film. Nothing wrong with this in and of itself, but it is hard to imagine that Schulze's trance-inducing electronic improvisations would be considered an appropriate soundtrack for sex. "Nowhere -- Now Here" has a basic beat and spacy synths, but after 18 minutes, when the harpsichord solo starts, the simple prog rock absurdity of it shows that Schulze isn't taking his assignment too seriously. The dubbed-out introduction to "Stardancer II" shows a different side of Schulze's muse, but as it gets interesting, the regular synths start up and things return to normal. "Moogetique" is an atmospheric closer, 12 minutes of slowly undulating synths and ambient echoes. Body Love, Vol. 2 does not differ greatly from the rest of Schulze's body of work from around this time, similar to contemporary albums Moondawn and X. This album is as recommended as any other of his albums from this phase of his career.