2026 January 12 • Monday

Maurice Jarre's theme from the movie Jacob's Ladder has found its way into the live performances and most recent recording of my band Elite Travelers. So let's make that score the 891st Soundtrack of the Week.

The main theme is a melancholy and atmospheric piano feature in 6/4 that has a hypnotic quality. Jarre went for sadness instead of horror in his approach and the movie itself is a gloomy sort of nightmare, suffused with sorrow.

This release contains the album presentation as well as the original film soundtrack. "High Fever" has wooden flute and pizzicato strings combining with percussion and sustained chords that shold please Angelo Badalamenti fans. It's a long piece that builds nicely.

"Descent to Inferno" starts with some sounds of terror and dread, with pulsating bass part, ominous low drones and metallic clanging before returning to the lush atmosphere of the previous track.

The main theme is then reprised in the lovely "Sarah", and then extended with impressive tenderness and lyricism, alternating with some more dread-inducing sonorities.

A lot more of this ominous atmosphere starts off "The Ladder", which does also include some lighter, more uplifting writing, braided together with dark, cloudy tones. This might not be one of Jarre's more dramatic score but it's absolutely one of his most beautiful and haunting.

The album release concludes with Al Jolson singing "Sonny Boy".

The film score has mostly the same music but presented in separate, shorter cues instead of miniature suites, and with more repetition. All of it is great to listen to.

2026 January 09 • Friday

Stockholm is one of the best record-store cities I've ever been to. And if I had to select a favorite shop, as much as I love Pet Sounds and Djungel & Jazz, my pick would have to be Record Mania.

Since we don't make it over to Stockholm that often, I decided not to hold myself back at Record Mania and to buy just about any record that had guitarist Rune Gustafsson on it.

(There was actually one such record that I decided not to buy because, well, it looked like it was probably not very good. The owner of the shop gave it to me for free.)

This turned out to be one of those trips where I bought so many records that the bag I was carrying in them fell apart. Luckily we made it almost the whole way before that happened.

But months and months later I'm still working my way through these albums. And some of them are shockingly good. Right now the most exciting one is In Pleno, by jazz pianist Jan Johansson.

This is a record that can hold its own against any number of classic US jazz records from the '50s or '60s. Johansson might remind you of Bill Evans on one tune or Horace Silver on another or Hank Jones or whoever. You can't really pin him down because he has his own voice.

The material ranges from West Coast-style jazz to some more avantgarde and interesting tracks, as well as an exciting take on the traditional "Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho".

The band is also more than impeccable but brilliant. The musicianship and ensemble feel are extraordinary. Rune Gustaffson is on here, of course, drwaing favorable comparisons to Jim Hall and Kenny Burrell. The other contributors are Georg Riedel on bass, Egil Johansen on drums and Rupert Clemendore on percussion.

I hadn't been caring much about jazz recently but In Pleno reignited that particular flame for me. I left the record on the turntable and just kept listening to it.

2026 January 07 • Wednesday

Julianna Riolino's All Blue was an instant favorite of mine when it came out a few years ago and listening to it dozens of time didn't diminish my enjoyment of it at all.

So it's exciting to have her follow-up record now. Echo in the Dust is another exciting, meticulously crafted, sometimes rocking, sometimes dreamy album.

My favortie song from All Blue ended up being "Hark" but it's too early to say what the favorite track from Echo in the Dust is going to be.

Likely candidates include "On a Bluebird's Wing", which would be great to listen to while driving or, if you're me, biking.

"Like a Rembrandt", with its powerful and assured vocals and distorted guitar riff that recalls Link Wray's cover of "Please Please Me", is a perfect opener that eases the listener back into Riolino's musical world.

1950s rock and pop traits are cleverly reassembled for "Seed", which also surprises with a shift in both meter and intensity without abandoning that previous era.

Art rock that's like a considerably more domesticated Tropical Fuck Storm gets a nod in "I Wonder" while "Let Me Dream" might be the best of the slower and more hypnotic songs.

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Of course you should just buy it and draw your own conclusions!

2026 January 05 • Monday

Let's start 2026 with Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin. The 890th Soundtrack of the Week is Jerrold Immel's music for their movie Death Hunt.

Angie Dickinson and Carl Weathers are in it too. I bet it's pretty good!

The score is solid. "Main Title/Dog Fight" starts off with some swirling strings that would suit a horror movie, soon balanced by a heroic theme for brass and martial snare drum.

Pastoral Americana comes next in "Man's Best Friend/The Cabin", which features harmonica and flute.

The main title music is reprised and some other suspense/horror moods added for "Millen's Posse/Shoot Low", with the horror feel continued in "Thawing Out/Dynamite/He's Gone".

The first half of "Would It Make Any Difference/In Pursuit" returns to the harmonica-led Americana territory before veering off again into tense action/terror music.

A pensive sound that also suggests the wide-open spaces of the western is the main ingredient of "Millen and Johnson Spot Each Other" and then it's back to unsettling, sharp, dangerous sonorities for "Hazel and Alvin Fight/Running with the Caribou".

More aggravated, often dissonant sustained tones, jagged staccato phrases and ominour low swells keep everything on edge for "Aerial Pursuit" and then things settle down a bit for the tense but lower key "Another Hard Choice/Across the Ice Peaks" and "One Last Chance/Now You're in Charge".

The "End Credits from Death Hunt" reprise the hopeful Americana theme, and then there are four pieces of source music, three of them fiddle and piano music with the fourth, a rendition of "My Darling Clementine" played on accordion or similar instrument.

Fans of John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith are likely to enjoy this one.

2026 January 02 • Friday

One of the most exciting record labels around right now is Riding Easy. My favorite releases from them tend to be these rescues of long lost, sometimes never before released recordings of heavy psych/prog/rock music from the early 1970s though they also release recordings by current bands.

For an example of something brought back from the distant past, check out thie Granicus LP!

It starts strong with the aggressive "You're in America" and "Bad Talk", both loud, fast and hard-hitting songs in a Black Sabbath/Led Zeppelin.

Then strings come in for a mellow instrumental called "Twilight"—think the intro to "Collage" by James Gang—followed by a monstrous 11-minute song called "Prayer", which is also very pretty mellow several minutes before the fuzz box gets stomped and the drums come crashing in.

They were originally from Cleveland but moved to New York, where they recorded this album and the song "Cleveland, Ohio" has a repeated line "I'm getting out of Cleveland, Ohio".

"Nightmare" starts as a trippy, spacey, laidback number before picking up speed, followed by the headbanging, Zeppy "When You're Movin'".

The last song, "Paradise", is another long one, at a little over seven minutes, and is an intense, mostly up-tempo rocker that has trace elements of Hendrix as well as the stirrings of hard core and metal.

Seriously, this record is great. Check it out!