FILM WORKS XI: 2002 VOLUME ONE - UNDER THE WING

On top of a relatively vast string of albums, collaborations, experiments, and avant-garde antics throughout his career, John Zorn has also taken to making soundtracks for films, a fitting combination for his chamber music and jazz styles. His focus on atmosphere and texture in his music lends well to a cinematic context, and my first experience with his soundtrack pieces 'Film Works XI' sounds very suitable to be tied to the action of a motion picture. Here, Zorn focuses on the ambiance of chamber music, occasionally delving into a few other familiar sounds, but the majority of the work here is based on Zorn's quaint work with strings, here performed by the Masada String Trio. Scoring a documentary about the lives about Jewish children during the holocaust, Zorn's haunting composition fits the subject matter perfectly, evoking a chilling ambient feeling even without its visual counterpart.

The music of 'Secret Lives' is fairly minimalistic, generally revolving around sound explorations of a few classical string instruments. There are melodies and themes that weave their way into some of these tracks, but much of this is meant to provide a haunting sheet of sonic wallpaper. The music is quiet, but rarely builds up to anything more than that. To this extent, the album has a very strong, singular identity to it. Some of Zorn's works have been all over the place, but 'Secret Lives' knows what it wants, and goes there without making all too many detours. There are some pleasant female vocals used sparsely to emphasize the few themes that run throughout the piece. There are also a few moments here that surprise the listener by taking things down an expected road; particularly a passage where Zorn directs his musician into what I might only describe as 'Chamber Jazz'.

The music is performed with dynamic, although this is quite simple as far as its composition and arrangement goes. There are a few twists along the way, but Zorn was certainly not aiming to make a consistently exciting record here. This is music to embellish both beauty and sadness in the background, and it does its work admirably.