Far from Men [Original Soundtrack] [LP]

This score for director David Oelhoffen's Far from Men (original title Loins Des Homme, starring Viggo Mortensen) comes across as perhaps the most organic and improvisational of all the Nick Cave and Warren Ellis cinematic collaborations to date. The narrative, based on an Albert Camus short story, spends a lot of time in empty landscapes. Ellis created a series of violin loops to use as the basis for various cues, and the pair simply built off of them in the moment, with minimal editing to the originally finished score. Piano, organs, harmoniums, fragmented electric guitar chords in drone tunings, bouzouki, basses, minimal percussion, layered strings played in octaves and effects, and sampled atmospheres -- all seem to emerge gradually from empty space to claim the center of their respective mixes. As a listening experience it is less dramatic, far more moody, filled more with the implication of something just out of earshot that's about to emerge rather than what actually does. That said, it is completely engaging and immersive. ~ Thom Jurek