If there's any common thread to be found running
through the records I've come across to date it's a recurring tendency for the
people behind them to take original music source X, arrange it in markedly and
almost bloody mindedly different style Y and then play it on totally unrelated
(to the original) instruments Z in a mash-up style that tends to work about as
well on the ear in reality as it does in theory on paper. Which is to say 'not
very'.
If it's not country songs arranged in pop style for a Hammond organ, it's
Beatles songs arranged for and played by a military band. The question 'why'? is
one I've long since stopped asking - these things just are, and my main reaction
now tends to be incredulity mixed with a certain admiration for the level of
imaginative risk taking on what is after all a commercial enterprise; at the end
of the day, these things are meant to sell. On the current record we have two
brothers from Brazil who dress in ceremonial Indian costumes playing
instrumental versions of Hollywood film soundtracks arranged for two acoustic
guitars. Right.
Before I get to the negative stuff, I want to point
out that the music here is played well and beautifully recorded; there's nothing
cheap and nasty about any of this. None of the arrangements turn the music
inside out so as to make it unrecognisable, but they are different
enough to make the enterprise worthwhile with the music having a drone-like
quality that's strangely hypnotic and (initially at least) relaxing, which I
guess is what all easy listening music aspires to. But then just as my taking a
long coach or train journey can start out with a frission of excitement because
it's 'something different', it doesn't take long for boredom to set in and I
start to squirm in my seat for it to hurry up and be over with.
And the point I'm trying to make with that is that
what starts off as a novelty - interesting even - soon wears paper thin when
it's repeated time and time again over two sides of a record. Being film
soundtracks, much of the music here was scored for dramatic effect and
atmosphere and so doesn't readily lend itself to spare arrangements on two
acoustic guitars and percussion. The selections, by and large, are strong enough
to withstand such major tinkering, but they don't survive unscathed and
something gets lost in the translation. Thus, the 'Theme From The Pink Panther'
loses it's playfulness, 'When You Wish Upon A Star' loses its wistfulness, 'The
Way We Were' loses it's sense of nostalgia etc. etc. - the arrangements subtract
and subtract until what's left is music that should clash and contrast but is
instead rendered impotent on a gentle breeze of easy listening bordering on
insipid muzak that, whilst in no way unpleasant, acts like a cheap air freshener
and lingers for about the same length of time. Inconsequential and inessential,
I'd much rather listen to Los Indios Tabajaras playing either their own or
traditional Brazilian music to be honest.
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