STACK February 2016 Issue 136

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Idris Elba Murdah Loves John
British actor/ DJ/ writer Idris Elba has stumbled
on a unique amalgam of his various talents in
the so-called "character album" genre. The idea
is pretty inspired: take all the deep psychological
preparations and ruminations from your latest
acting gig, then pour them into a musical form that
reflects the same physical landscape. Hence the
African collage of Mi Mandela in 2014, and now this, a brooding study of
the inner and outer worlds of his BBC crime drama character, Luther. With
beats by Fred Cox and guests including singer-pianist Stephen Ridley,
Kasabian's Tom Meighan and rapper Wretch 32, the mood is dark, urban
and soulful. The demons and dilemmas of the troubled copper bubble up
from Elba's subconscious in the quasi-Bond-theme smoulder of Paradise
Circus and the more slippery likes of Finish Line: "I guess I'm caught up
in the bullshit of good and bad/ Now I'm feeling the guilt I never thought
I had," Ridley sings over queasy backsliding synth lines. There's loose,
percussive funk in Wide Awake and smoky curb-crawling trip-hop in Fires,
one of several murmured by incoming femme fatale Fabienne. Just don't
expect a happy ending and nobody needs to get hurt.
(Liberator) Michael Dwyer
visit MUSIC REVIEWS
18 FEBRUARY 2016
MUSIC
Ignite A War Against You
When Zoli Teglas came to the
aid of massive SoCal punk rock
pioneers Pennywise back in 2010,
after they suddenly lost their
vocalist Jim Lindberg, he helped
them deliver one of the best and
freshest albums of their decorated
career. The handsome Hungarian
has since returned to his own
band, dormant for over a decade
since their last LP, and renergised
them as well. Endlessly melodic
and heavy on harmony in Teglas’
unmistakable upper register,
Ignite’s newie can be a little
cheesy at times. Luckily those
sugary moments where his cliche
lyrics are delivered with angelic
choir-like chorus are almost always
housed in powerful punk rock. A
fantastic return.
(Century Media) Emily Kelly
Dream Theater
The Astonishing
Never a band to do anything by
halves, Dream Theater return with
a 2-CD concept album. Divided
into two acts, The Astonishing
is a sprawling tale about a group
of rogues and their mission to
overthrow a tyrannical empire.
The band tackles the story with
the usual drive we’d expect and
it’s quite an experience. Vocalist
James LaBrie sings multiple
characters and the band employs
David Campbell (Adele, Justin
Timberlake, Muse, etc.) to add
both orchestration and choral
arrangements to the production.
The Astonishing plays out like a
blockbuster movie would, making
it quite an aural experience.
(Roadrunner Records)
Simon Lukic
JUSTIN HURWITZ (Whiplash)
This was only Hurwitz’s second foray into scoring, and
he was hurled into the deep end. Originally he was to
write Whiplash’s dramatic underscore while all the
big band pieces would be jazz standards, but after the
film’s financers realised they couldn’t afford licensing
beyond Levy’s Whiplash and Tizol’s Caravan, Hurwitz had to do some quick-
smart arranging of original jazz charts for a full band. He nailed it.
ANTONIO SANCHEZ (Birdman)
Sanchez was relatively unknown outside of his
native Mexico until last year, when Birdman won
the Academy Award for Best Picture (and triumphed
in three other categories too, although not for Best
Original Music Score – see Alexandre Desplat below).
A jazz drummer from the capital, he created the dexterous, percussion-heavy
soundtrack to Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s visceral film.
ALEXANDRE DESPLAT
(The Imitation Game)
The French pianist, trumpeter, flautist and composer has enjoyed a hugely
acclaimed career in film score creation. His astonishing CV includes the scores
for The Grand Budapest Hotel (for which he won an Oscar last year), Zero
Dark Thirty , Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (parts one and two), Argo,
The King’s Speech, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Syriana.
HANS ZIMMER ( Interstellar)
Considered an iconoclast in his field, Zimmer has
been involved with more than 150 films. He began as
a classical pianist but pretty quickly became bored
with formal lessons and began augmenting his piano
with random objects, to alter the sound. He created
Inception’s (in)famous ‘BRAAM’ sound by having cellists play next to an open
piano within a cathedral, recording the subsequent reverberations.
JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON
(The Theory Of Everything)
This Icelandic composer has gained greater notoriety in recent years for his
distinctive minimalist, neo-classical scoring. In addition to this year’s Sicario,
he’s responsible for the electronic/drone pieces which thread through films
Prisoners, McCanick , and White Black Boy.
Movies and music go together like banana and
ice-cream, so we’re taking a closer look at the
Grammy nominees for Best Score Soundtrack
for Visual Media, whose collective musical
aptitude is off the charts (sadly, mostly
literally). Here’s who’s up for the Soundtrack
statue on February 15.
GETTING TO KNOW YOUR
GRAMMYS
UNDERDOGS