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Given their prolific discographies as Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Grinderman, and The Dirty Three, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis aren't the kind of people you would expect to have time for extra curricular activities. However, over the past four years they've managed to fit soundtrack work into their busy schedules, providing the scores for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Proposition (which Cave also scripted), The Road, The English Surgeon and The Girls of Phnom Penh. This double disc collects those works, but be warned: If you're expecting this to sound like their usual band output, you'll be largely disappointed, as these pieces were created to accompany images and are, with few exceptions, completely instrumental. In the absence of vocals and rock band instrumentation many of the pieces here are dominated by orchestral instruments, with Ellis' violin taking center stage frequently throughout. The moods alternate from somber, expansive, mournful, meditative and occasionally flat out creepy ("The Rider No. 2" from the soundtrack to The Proposition - one of the tracks with vocals). Although these, like most scores, are best heard in the context of the films they were created for, they do just fine on their own and are worth a listen.
DAVID MANSDORF
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