July 1, 2008

• Review: Death Defying Acts

  Every once in a while a new name comes across the pile of discs I receive.  Most of the time I pray that it is not someone who has discovered the urbane power of software to write their music for them, or someone who has eschewed actually writing music and focused more on musique concrete ambient designs.  So as luck would have it a new score by a relative unknown composer (to me) appeared yesterday. 

  After The Illusionist and The Prestige it would seem that period magic dramas had plumbed whatever depths there were to get to but director Gillian Armstrong's Death Defying Acts tries anyway to explore this in the life of real magician Harry Houdini.  The film focuses on a key aspect of Harry Houdini’s obsession with psychics who can contact the dead.  Houdini was infamous for discovering frauds who practiced this kind of magic, but after the death of his mother he continued to hope that there might be some possibility of contacting her from beyond.  The current film focuses on a mother and son who scheme to discover a way to bilk Houdini out of the $10,000 he offered for anyone who could tell him what his mother’s dying words were.  The film made its debut at last year’s Toronto Film Festival and will have a limited engagement this summer here in the states.  The music for the film is by Australian composer Cezary Skubiszewski (a Polish émigré) who has been working in that country’s industry for over a decade with many awards to his credit.  This appears to be his first score release here in America and it is an impressive debut.

  Lakeshore’s presentation opens with a “suite” which is in a post-minimalist style with thematic ideas gradually presented after a worldess, Elfman-esque chorus.  There are some Celtic-flavored melodies, all very engaging, which make this a quickly accessible score from the start.  The shifts from orchestral sound to more intimate chamber ideas works quite well often accompanied by a breathy ethnic flute.  Solo instrumental ideas tend to move between gorgeous cello solos and flute flavorings.  Other solo ideas are bounced around as well with great variety all beautifully performed by members of the Melbourne and Victorian Symphonies. 

  To show off Princess Kali (appearing in a misspelled track), the composer creates a Klezmer-styled piece with adding in things like an oud, dholak, zurna, and a piano accordion.  It does create quite an interesting mix of sound that feels like we are entering into an ancient musical world.  The worlds of Houdini and Princess Kali meet (“Houdini’s Angel”) musically once in a while and Skubiszewski moves effortlessly between them.  Also fun is a little silent cinema out-of-tune piano sound for “The Star Picture House.”  Even here, Skubiszewski’s ability to craft engaging thematic ideas is on great display as is his mastery of period piano hall styles.  There is also a stylish foxtrot nicely crafted with great solo trumpet, piano, and clarinet work.  And a hint of “Auld Lang Syne” perhaps in “The Final Curtain.”  Throughout the score, there is a great variety in orchestral color with only occasional design elements (perhaps accompanying the séance scenes).

  After a host of direct-to-mp3 dowloadable scores, this one would be wonderful if the sound was not so horrid.  Distortion from what seems like too hot a recording to disc plagues the release in its climaxes.  The sound does not allow for any aural space for solos which makes the sound seem distorted occasionally.  This holds true even for the klezmer pieces as well.  It is not clear if it is due to the way the disc is mastered or the artificial balancing that happened during the recording of the score itself.  Fortunately, it is not present all the way through each track where there is some warmth to the sound hinting at the richness of the orchestra performance.  Otherwise, this is a fine score by a composer that will be worth watching and at just over 50 minutes there is plenty to enjoy.

   

  • 12:47 pm
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