ZABRISKIE POINT (OST)

If the soundtrack of this legendary movie is relatively uninteresting for the average or casual proghead (unless he's in search for some rarities from the groups concerned), the movie itself is an astonishing time piece from director Antonioni, as much so as his other legendary movie Blow Up (with the Yardbirds' appearance).

Some may not enjoy the movie because of its loose storyline, but it's fairly typical of the spirit of the times. Indeed, the plot ir relatively patchy, but it holds a few avant-garde topics, namely the human expansion and environemental concerns. The end of the movie is particularly poignant with the scene of that modern mansion exploding under an early form of Floyd's Careful With That Axe, Eugene. Even 40 years later, that scene still sends chills down my spine. Aside that finale for the rest of the music's plece in the movie, it's a lot less noticeable, partly due to the difference between the soundtrack presenting the entire "songs" when the movie featured only bits and extracts. To be honest, for the proghead, it's ostly the Floyd tracks that matter. The second disc is somehow interesting because of the Love Scene's several trials, both from Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and Floyd's runs. In some ways, it's kind of too bad Floyd lost that "bid" as well, but history won't be remade. If the Dead/Garcia pieces and the Kaleidscope (US group) songs are relevant pure psychedelia, the Floyd pieces are even more relevant. They're sonically somewhere in between the More Soundtrack and Ummagumma's live disc.

Zabriskie Point is like a few other movies depicting the later-60's era, such as easy Rider, Blow Up, The Trip, Model Shop (from French director Jacques Demy, with the involvment of the group Spirit), and a few more, often taking place in California(or London) All essential pieces of an psychedelic era gone by. Sorry if this reads more like a review of the movie rather than the soundtrack, but this new "expanded" reissue is not really more interesting than the original vinyl version that I'd borrowed from a frend in the mid-70's. I understand an extensive and luxurious boxset was released a few years ago, with even more unreleased material, but one might wonder why, since the movie was not included in it. If the soundtrack gets three stars for me, the movie gets nearly five in my book, hence the average I made.