NICK CAVE - Hell Or High Water Ost

2016 (Milan records)
film music, soundtrack

Teatro e musica sono una passione ormai più che ventennale per il formidabile duo australiano Nick Cave–Warren Ellis. Una passione che parte addirittura dal 1987 – anno in cui Cave e i suoi Bad Seeds collaborano, con due soli brani, alla colonna sonora del film “Wings Of Desire” – fino ai più recenti “The Proposition” (2005), “The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford” (2007), “The Road” (2009), la raccolta “White Lunar” (2009) e “Lawless” (2012). 

Nick Cave e Warren Ellis hanno avuto il merito di creare, in questi decenni, una visione assolutamente personale della musica per film; piano e violino descrivono paesaggi spogli, spesso tetri, mai davvero gioiosi o consolatori. La loro musica è epica senza essere mai pomposa; ricca di pathos senza cercare momenti di gloria o di facile commozione; malinconica con flebili attimi di speranza; minimale ma non scarna, a volte potente senza mai essere eccessiva. L’epica di Cave ed Ellis è quella del solitario sconfitto, antieroe giusto ma emarginato. Cave – nonostante si immedesimi nelle ambientazioni richieste dal film – sembra continuare a parlare di se stesso, delle sue psicosi e dei suoi incubi; i legami con i Bad Seeds sono, probabilmente, meno labili di quanto si pensi.

I brani di “Hell Or High Water” non si discostano molto dalle precedenti produzioni per il cinema; “Comancheria” apre con una classica sonata di piano che nasce da un bordone di violino. “Mama’s Room”, per quanto simile al precedente, è il brano più ispirato; le sue pochissime note di piano, ridotte al minimo, sono pura poesia malinconica. “Texas Midlands” inizia ad assumere aspetti più inquieti, come anche il ritmo ossessivo di “Robbery”; se nella prima era il piano di Cave a disperdere la tensione, nella seconda è invece il violino di Ellis. La tensione raggiunge l’apice nelle distorsioni e nei cori di “Mountain Lion Mean”.

“Hell Or High Water” è completato da una serie di brani storici del country e del blues americano e canadese (Townes Van Zandt, Waylon Jennings, Colter Wall, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Chris Stapleton, Scott H. Biram).

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18/10/2016

This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Valerio D'Onofrio, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition

Tracklist

  1. 1. Comancheria
  2. 2. Dollar Bill Blues (feat Townes Van Zandt)
  3. 3. Mama's Room
  4. 4. Dust Of The Chase (feat Ray Wylie Hubbard)
  5. 5. Texas Midlands
  6. 6. Robbery
  7. 7. You Ask Me To (feat Waylon Jennings)
  8. 8. Mountain Lion Mean
  9. 9. Sleeping on the Blacktop (feat Colter Wall)
  10. 10. From My Cold Dead Hands
  11. 11. Lord Of The Plains
  12. 12. Blood, Sweat And Murder (feat Scott H. Biram)
  13. 13. Casino
  14. 14. Comancheria II
  15. 15. Outlaw State Of Mind (feat Chris Stapleton)
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