Not much going on today, thank goodness!  Later tonight it's the final game of the NCAA which I will probably stay up to watch as it should be a great game.  Then my sports fanatacism can go dormant again until next year.

Been reading through a new book of interviews from film music composers by Christian DesJardins.  If you are a fan of film music it is worth tracking down.  There is an interesting interview here with Gabriel Yared who mentions that he is working on Troy, which would eventually lead to a rejected score and replacement by James Horner.  John Barry and David Raksin are the "old" school composers who are included here.  There are plenty of newer composers to discover information about in this book as well.  You learn what some of their own personal favorite scores are, who they enjoy to listen to, and other interesting things along the way.  A few orchestrators are also interviewed.  This book has a few problems that are inherent in any interview-based text.  Some of these are minor gripes for something that is assuredly worth your time.  It will even lead you to consider a few other scores by composers you may have overlooked.

It makes a great companion to an early book that is somewhat similar, Michael Schelle's The Score.  

The Number 23  is the new Joel Schumacher thriller starring Jim Carrey which opens next week.   The film deals with a book that begins to have psychological, and later, real consequences for Carrey’s character and perhaps even his loved ones.   Harry Gregson-Williams provides the score for this his third collobaration with the director (the others being 2002’s underrated Phone Booth and the little seen 2003 film Veronica Guerin).

The 44+ minute score presented on this New Line Records release provides an interesting listeneing experience from the composer of The Chronicles of Narnia and Kingdom of Heaven (both 2005).  Gregson-Williams's score is a little closer to the music he wrote for Spy Game (2001) and Enemy of the State (1998). 

The “Opening Titles” begin atmospherically sounding a bit like Herrmann, but soon a constant rock-like pulse enters and we are in trance-music mode.  Interesting string lines try to assert themselves over the pulsations, but this gives way, about three minutes in, to a section of music that sounds like something out of Thomas Newman’s oeuvre albeit heavier.   The second track, “Fingerling’s Childhood” opens with a delicate clarinet melody over strings in a nicely-crafted segment that grows slowly into a more sinister sounding close.  Gregson-Williams employs a richer harmonic color in his orchestration here and couples this with some intriguing electronic effects.   There is also a mixture of both electric guitar riffs and a kind of middle-eastern electronic sound coming from solos on electric cello and electric violin.  “Suicide Blonde” includes an interesting rhythmic section that plays against the more static musical sections.  Particularly interesting is when the manic string ostinato pattern appears in the score propelling the music forward between various fascinating atmospheric soundscapes.  Horror elements often take over in places to add just the appropriate amount of creepiness which continues to build as the disc progresses.  The final track, “Atonement,” is a big orchestral crescendo that incorporates longer extensions of the primary thematic material with interestingly sinuous chromatic lines that ebb and flow against some of the atmospheric material.  The clarinet idea returns cementing the organic ideas of the score and ending with an unusual string statement which surprisingly is not given any closure.

Overall, The Number 23 is an intriguing score which captures the listener’s attention with just enough thematic material balanced with unusual sounds and effects.  There are moments of more contemporary trance and rock elements balanced against atmospherics and orchestral sections that make the score stand out a bit even within the composer’s work to date.