#3715 Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - Watchmen: Volume 1

3.5/5 all the tracks are simple on paper, and some of their tricks are familiar by now, but man these guys can put just the right sheen on those synths and textures. Clip the attack here, filter in some fuzz, some magic happens. Shame about all those spoken interludes - they set the stage the first time and fuck the flow all the way up every time after

#3516 Brian Witzig - The Iron Horse

3.5/5 funky enough, and gets the production dust and pop right, that bit of retro mythology elevates, everything a bit road-worn. pretty good poker music

#3201 Nicolas Godin - Au service de la France

I'm a sucker for the French, I admit it, so let's get it out of the way while I fellate them.

This is everything I love about exotica and lounge and tropicalia and bossa nova and it cool as fuck. Godin gets it, every theme's cooler than the last, a world tour though a spy's eyes, a trip through space and time to all the sexiest, most mysterious corners of the world. Composed or sampled or who knows -- swoon goddamn 4.5/5

#2535 Air - Le Voyage Dans la Lune

A surprisingly great burst of anachronistic mystery from the erstwhile masters of effortless euro-cool atmosphere. This theoretically soundtracks the silent film of the (roughly) same name, but fuck if I've been able to pin down how its 31 minutes would track down to 16 of visuals?

So file this under inspired-by, but tag it Soundtrack, because it has that kind of feel - inspiring mystery and adventure and sounds out of time, packed with odd rhythms, curious instrumentation, otherworldy pulses, ever-expanding ambition.

A wildly unique little slice of delightful musical strange 4/5

#2461 Madlib - The Beats (Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton Soundtrack)

17 tidy minutes of classic Madlib - irresistable bass flowing like silk under a scrapbook of looping castoff microhooks. A catchy, colorful deep-groove teaser 3.5/5

#2379 Herbie Hancock - Death Wish OST

Nah, outside of the kickin opening theme, this is all movie background music, and it shows, lying limp without the scene its setting, Herbie Hancock or not. There's flashes of jazzy genius, but not nearly often enough where you'd ever really put this on, publicly or privately 2.5/5

#2246 Kyle Dixon - Stranger Things Soundtrack

M83 imagined an 80's that never was, voiced by a music that never really existed. Dixon takes that a step further. His soundtrack drips with menace and romance, with the dark, naive thrill of being young in an uncertain world, full of possibility and fear, pulling hard from M83, and from Kraftwerk's warmest moments, packing every track with blistering, blossoming, analog texture.

The pacing's slow, completionist. This's no Fight Club. It doesn't quite capture the atmosphere, the feel. But the sound's just too sweet to ignore, too packed with endaround pathos, every tone knowing the frequency-key to your heart's darkest maybes 4/5

#2226 Scattle - Only Built 4 Sausage Links

Super Meat Boy's part of this early 10's indie retro game revival: bringing back chunky pixel graphics and punishing//rewarding difficulty. And this's a set of tracks from the newer version of the game that capture that spirit: retro 8-bit skrunch rubbing elbows with slightly-less-retro breakbeats and just-kinda-recently-uncool dubby wobblebobbles.

It's exciting, propulsive stuff - fast tempos, busy textures and short song lengths keep things fresh. Good for typing fast or driving fast or jumping though buzzsaw gauntlets fast 3.5/5

#2207 Daft Punk / VA - Tron Legacy Reconfigured

Hey Daft Punk fan: this might be more of what you were hoping for.

The remixers attack the hardest, roughest tracks, stretch them out to proper getdown lengths, screw them all around, making 'em even harder, rougher. It's great fun. Everyone brings their own touch, but by stripping off the strings and doubling down on the lightcycle laserblasms, you get more Daft Punk via not-Daft Punk, after all.

If nothing else, falling down the kaleidoscope of soundtrack/Daft Punk/remixer visions again and again's a heady trip worth taking 4/5

#2206 Daft Punk - Tron Legacy OST

This is a soundtrack by Daft Punk -- soundtrack first, Daft Punk second. Taken on those terms, it's totally successful.

There's the ominous pulse of strings, of traditional soundtrack washes ::: pounding empire, washes of the unknown, pregnant tension --- field of black.

And across that you get those gleams, those slashes of beyond-neon, those lightcycle streaks of electronic fizzle, those moments where the spark leaps and cracks the logic.

--

I haven't seen the movie (:/)

But, with the song titles and a little knowledge of the original -- I feel like I have.

--

It's not a great standalone album, no Fight Club or Social Network as electronic soundtracks go, leaning too hard on the same generic falling strings-to-10 progressions. But for the most part it's tense, exciting, and subconsciously evocative of the themes (I assume??) it's backing: a win in my book 3.5/5

#2178 Jimmy Cliff - The Harder They Come Soundtrack

Jamacian music before it got all Marley and Me, bristling with sunlight and sadness, pulsing bass and funky touches, letting that reggae pulse wander free. A ridiculously solid, well-paced collection - even the repeated alternate versions at the end kinda work, all part of the endless float 4/5

#1861 Dan Romer - Digging for Fire Soundtrack

A touching little minimalist meditation - the same themes coming up again and again, those rising flutes and falling synths. You could bluff and call this a 27 minute Brian Eno piece and not get called a liar. It works, in its small way, lifting just enough in its final refrains to cast itself as a cloud and out to sea as a memory 3.5/5