Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email


2025 August 04 • Monday

Bert Shefter's music for San Francisco-set crime film No Escape is the 868th Soundtrack of the Week.

The main title starts with piano in front of the orchestra playing cascading figures, sort of a mini-piano concerto. Since one of the main characters is a songwriter who plays piano in a bar, this will be a motif.

Typically perky and bright music accompanies "Golden Gate Bridge", but there are some unsual dissonances for the strings as well as some sweeping harp lines and a sultry and bluesly sax line at the end.

Strings, flutes and percussion create sounds of suspense and mystery for "Trace Writes Song", which resolves into a sequence of major chords.

Then there's a shift to a minor key and the piano comes back for the intriguing "Love and Laughter Menu", followed by a tense and short cue for "Hayden's Penthouse".

There are two very short "Pinker Jingle" cues just for bells, and then a midtempo ballroom dance rhythm for "In a Dress Salon".

"Tracy at the Piano" and "Tracy Improvises" are two short solo piano pieces, followed by a somewhat Herrmannesque cue, "Calling All Cars", which is a surprisingly soft and gentle action piece.

The strings come in strong for "Police Station Lobby" before handing the melody over to clarinet.

The "Pinker Jingle" returns but is joined by strings for "Pinker's Clock", and then the piano concerto idea comes back for "Tracy Under the Bridge".

Flutes create a sharp sense of uneasiness for "Tickets on Table" that's followed by tension and action statements in "Market and Powell".

Music for "Railroad Station" starts off almost carefree before a romantic heaviness and feeling of danger comes sweeping in with the orchestra.

The second "Calling All Cars" cue is a lot shorter but more intense then the first, leading to a nerve-jangling, percussion heavy "Night Montage".

Then there are two more short solo piano tracks, "Tracy Playing 'No Escape'" and "Chords".

There might be a "Far Away Look in Pat's Eyes" but this isn't a dreamy cue, it sounds more like action and violence. The dreaminess comes next, in the sweetly romantic, violin-led "Tracy and Pat Love Scene - Part 1" and ""Tracy and Pat Love Scene - Part 2 ('The Buzzer')", though the latter does get interrupted at the end by more menacing music.

Stereotypical "Chinese" is unsurprisingly on offer for "In a Chinese Restaurant". Shefter does some sick things with the strings in here, slidy and microtonal and kind of woozy sounding.

"Penthouse" has the piano with orchestra swinging its way through our main theme, this time with some drums!

Chopping strings and perky percussion add a lot of sharpness to "A Fight", but all is well and segues into the sweet and calm "Tracy and Pat End Title", followed by an Afro Cuban-influenced take on "Pat and Tracy".

Then there are two hot jazz source music cues and some alternate takes.