This soundtrack has made me want to watch a film that I didn't previously have the slightest interest in seeing. Initially, a few things caught my eye about the tracklist; from most to least interesting:
• a recording of Pärt's "Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten" done by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, an ensemble whose name I knew but couldn't place
• two versions of Tim Buckley's great "Song to the Siren", one by Buckley himself and the other by a pair whose names were unfamiliar to me, Paul Charlier and Paula Arundell
• a song - the "wedding theme" - by Johnette Napolitano, who I thought was the lead singer from 4 Non Blondes but turns out to be from Concrete Blonde (damnit, they have more in common than just the word 'Blonde' in their names!)
As to those, the reading of the "Cantus" here is more hesitant, less ineluctably sweeping, its various instrumental lines more distinct (and the bells more pronounced) than the recording with which I'm most familiar, the one from the Tabula Rasa cd put down by Dennis Russell Davies and the Stuttgart State Orchestra. But it works. The Charlier/Arundell "Song to the Siren" (I presume that the music was done by Charlier, who's the composer of the score to the film, and the vocals by Arundell), which opens the soundtrack, seemingly owes much more to the version done by Robin Guthrie and Liz Fraser under the 'This Mortal Coil' moniker than to Buckley's original, and has a gloomy, broody prettiness which sets the tone for the soundtrack as a whole; Buckley's is a live version and its simplicity, done by him, is as affecting as always. And the Napolitano is a muted, plaintive, somehow bruised thing which is rather lovely.
Elsewhere, the music's in a similar vein to those four tracks - listening to it really makes me feel as if I have a sense for the film already, despite not having seen any trailers, etc and having only the vaguest idea as to what it's about. I'm sure that it'll be a downer, but I think I should watch it.
