EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY – Prince Avalanche
1. Fires
2. Theme From Prince Avalanche
3. Dear Madison
4. Passing Time
5. Rain
6. Alone Time
7. Hello, is this your houe?
8. Can’t we just listen to the Silence
9. Wading
10. Dear Alvin
11. The Lines On The Road That Lead You Back Home
12. An old peasant like me
13. Join Me On My Avalanche
14. The Adventures of Alvin and Lance
15. Send Off
Scoring a film is an artform in itself; for it is basically music, composed on an everlasting balancing act between subtlety and expression, atmosphere and highlight. That said, you can imagine how hard it must be to write music for an independent comedy which story evolves around two road workers that are repainting traffic lines amidst the nothingness of a forest-fire-desolated landscape in Texas. To catch a vibe is one thing, but to catch a vibe of a setting this odd, is even harder. Seriously, it’s been a long time since I heard of such an absurd but truly ingenious setting-idea as the one of David Gordon Green’s new film Prince Avalanche. On the flipside though, it seems absolutely logical to recruite the Texan postrock heroes of EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY for the score. Although you wouldn’t necessiraly associate their music with comedies, this collaborative soundtrack with David Wingo from OLA PODRIDA is the perfect match for a comedy of an alternate sort as Prince Avalanche promises to be.
With the charred environment, a road with no traffic and two odd characters, one thing is for sure: everything’s a bit out of place here. Therefore, the soundtrack needs to transport a feeling of slightly awkward situations. But as the guys of EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY as well as David Wingo now got a decent amount of experience in accompanying such a movie-project, you can be assured, that they’ll always hit the right notes. More reduced and focused on floating arrangements, there is no wall of sound here, burying the real content – which is the silent, but steady dramaturgy of the film. As much as there is laughter and light, playful entertainment, this is still a film with several different layers underneath the shiny surface. This is why there is an undeniable – and yes, somehow typical, but this is still a postrock band, you know? – ambient, melancholic vibe, tying the fifteen little pieces of this soundtrack together. Mostly, it’s the fractured themes, that are lost, kept and rediscovered throughout the songs, that’ll let the pictures of the film seem as unpredictable as familiar.
There’s warmth in this cold and dead environment – who could make this claim sound more comprehensable than the creators of some of the best postrock-albums of the last decades? It is literally the life in the littlest things, that is captured by this magnificent soundtrack. With Prince Avalanche, the dreamteam of EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY and DAVID WINGO could enter the first-to-call-lists of many arthouse and independent directors in the world. And, as we hear, there already are more soundtracks in the pipeline. May they not be as fulfilling as a real new EITS-album, but they surely got the capacity of enhancing a good film. And I think, this we can take for granted: there will be no bullshit in the name of EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY.
Stream the entire soundtrack right here.
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