Details:
- Film: 127 Hours
- Soundtrack composer: A. R. Rahman
- Original year of release: 2010
- Number of tracks: 14
- Soundtrack duration: 61 mins 25 secs
- Tracks with vocals/distracting aspects: 6 Tracks (30 mins 40 secs) (Tracks 1, 5, 7, 9, 13, 14)
- Film score duration (with distracting tracks removed): 30 mins 45 secs
- Suggested suitable book genres: Scene setting chapters from a Stephen King novel, Westerns, Some Quieter Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
DLS Summary:
The soundtrack as a whole is an eclectic mix of different instrumental tracks and musical styles and scores. There’s a handful of pop songs and the like thrown in amongst the score, so if used for reading to, you’ll probably want to leave them out. However, on the whole the remaining soundtrack is pretty darn good. Perhaps not an obvious fit for reading a horror or dark thriller to. But a damn good score that’s a quieter, more subdued soundtrack to have in the reserve.
Personally, I think it’s a great soundtrack to have on hand for reading. The music is generally on the quieter side but one that sets a wonderfully evocative atmosphere which just makes reading a book to so perfect. Love it. But you have to wait until you’re reading a book that suits the style and tone of the soundtrack.
DLS Review:
Please note, this review will only cover the ‘film score’ type tracks and not the songs.
Track One (Never Hear Surf Music Again) is a song by ‘Free Blood’…so moving along…
Track Two (The Canyon) delivers a quietly evocative string quartet piece, setting out a delicate track full of quaint optimism and hope. It kind of feels like one of those scores where the film titles come up as we watch the sun gradually rising over a beautiful dusty landscape. Absolutely ideal for reading to.
Track Three (Liberation Begins) is an ever-so-slightly muffled/distorted chugging guitar piece which feels a world away from that of the aforementioned opening piece of the score. Indeed, this track feels much more like something that would appear on ’28 Days Later’ (2002) or performed by ‘Godspeed You! Black Emperor’. It’s a good one for reading with though, setting in a feel of mounting rhythm and perhaps even underlying tension.
Track Four (Touch Of The Sun) on the other hand is a luscious acoustic piece with strings being delicately plucked, treated to soft reverb and a beautiful whispering warmth to it all. Kind of starts out sounding like something performed by ‘40 Watt Sun’ and then moves into a hauntingly evocative, subdued and purposefully reserved piece. After a short while the track gradually evolves into something full of hopeful emotion and life. Quite simply beautiful music and again, ideal for reading to.
Track Five is Bill Waters’ classic song ‘Lovely Day’. Trust me, you know it…
Track Six however, is a classic piano piece by Chopin (Nocturne No. 2 in E Flat, Op. 9, No. 2) performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy. It’s the sort of track that feels at home in some scene or other within most movies, although it particularly reminds me of Ridley Scott’s ‘Hannibal’ (2001). Maybe it appeared in that?
Track Seven is another song, by what sounds like some horrific French reimagining of the ‘The Beach Boys’. Moving on somewhat swiftly…
Track Eight (Liberation In A Dream) sounds just like something ‘MGR’ would write. It’s a mounting piece of music (just like something MGR would produce), with guitars building up memento, to gradually be accompanied by layers of strings and some drums and even sections of horns later on. Trust me, this one’s a heck of a track.
Track Nine is a song by Esther Phillips…
Track Ten (Acid Darbari) on the other hand sounds like something American Rock band ‘Earth’ would produce. It’s wonderfully ambient and evocative of a Native American Indian style legacy. It’s slow with chiming bells and woodwind instruments lending that mystical ‘in-touch-with-nature’ air to it.
Track Eleven (R.I.P.) is a deeply quiet and reserved piece, with vocalised notes and the like coming out within a dream-like musical compassion. Kind of reminds me of that hazy-hallucination bit in Zack Snyder’s ‘300’ (2006) when Leonidas consults with the Oracle who’s dancing around in the buff.
Track Twelve (Liberation) is another reworking of that ‘MGR’ style track (Track Eight). This time the escalating speed of the track’s underlying rhythm is far more pronounced as it its increased urgency. In fact, within the first minute or so we’re thundering away with quite a tempo behind the track along with plenty of layers building upon this increasingly complex musical composition.
Track Thirteen is a song by Sigur Rós…
Track Fourteen is another song with vocals (here by the talented ‘Dido’ no less)…
As a soundtrack for reading to:
The soundtrack as a whole:
© DLS Reviews
