Search - Alex North, Jocelyn Pook, Nelson Riddle :: Eyes Wide Shut: Soundtrack Collection

Ears wide open

Mr Mauro Aristides | Sao Paulo, Brazil | 08/10/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Perhaps all the fouteen tracks od Stanley Kubrick's last motion picture album have been cherry picked by himself. It contains hailed classical titles like Dimitri Shostakovich's "Waltz 2 From Jazz Suite" or "If I Had You" by Roy Gerson, as well as cheap and easy-to-listen-to songs like "Baby Did a Very Bad Thing" by Chris Isaak or "Strangers in the Night" performed by The Peter Hughes Orchestra. Jocelyn Pook is the author of four tracks. When you listen to them while watching the movie, they are pure bliss-out, making sense of Tom Cruise's sexual reverie. Listening to the CD alone, however, the music somehow loses the thread. Her songs are too posh and intellectual to listen to at home or in the car. Perhaps the album would have been better off with only one or two of her titles. Still, "Eyes Wide Shut" is a pretty enjoyable demonstration that such different artists may be put together side by side. Although it may sound, and perhaps is, a larding of styles, the choice makes perfect sense, especially for the target public: those who developed a total crush on Kubrick's dazzling farewell movie."

"EYES WIDE OPEN AND DREAMING

astleyworld | BLACKPOOL U K | 11/01/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Now celebrating nearly 20 years in the music business.Jocelyn Pook has travelled a long road since the days of sessions for Siouxsie & the Banshees.Together with other ex students from the Guildhall...Ann Stephenson and Audrey Riley they joined forces with singer songwriter Virginia Astley and had their names on the sleeve of "Melt the Snow":collectively the 4 of them were known as "Virginia Astley's Friends & Colleagues" and stayed with her until 1986. In the 90s Jocelyn was a co founder of the Electra Strings,with Sonia Slany,and eventually this was to lead to her Ist album "Deluge".She remained closeted in her own world of contemporary chamber music,her influences from many strains of classical music.This album contained "Blow the wind/Pie Jesu" which sampled the voice of Kathleen Ferrier and ended up on a TV commercial for Orange mobile phones. Among her many commissions came the one from Stanley Kubrick for the "Eyes Wide Shut" film:the 4 pieces acted as a trailer for her next album "Flood",which was more or less the "Deluge" one repackaged and with a few extended mixes. Jocelyn Pook and Sonia Slany have now gone their seperate ways but can be seen as the future of classical music The rest of the soundtrack album,apart from a couple of classical items,could best be described as "disposable".Only Jocelyn's music was commissioned,the rest is a case of "selected with a pin""