Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email


2018 June 11 • Monday

There always seems to be another Jerry Goldsmith score to listen to and enjoy for the first time. I hope that never changes! The 521st Soundtrack of the Week is one: High Velocity.

Much of the score finds Goldsmith working with Latin American folk music idioms, blending nylon-string guitar with marimbas and other percussion instruments as well as flutes.

Elsewhere he creates typically engaging and powerful moods of suspense, tension and action, particularly with staccato piano lines.

The cymbalom is also an occasional voice here, used sparingly and effectively. And there's an especially crafty deployment of electric guitar in "The Mission Begins".

He goes back and forth between these two approaches effortlessly and blends them on occasion. If the movie is half as good as the music, I'll enjoy watching it!

Unsurprisingly there's also music for tender scenes and presumably "Ring" is some kind of love theme, introduced by guitar and flute before more of the orchestra comes in.