La Blanche Traversée - Jocelyn Pook, Brough, Harvey
Thousand Year Dream - Jocelyn Pook, Messier, Jean-Frédé
Goya's Nightmare - Jocelyn Pook, Brough, Harvey
Forever Without End [1999 Remix]
Flood
On Flood, we join British composer Jocelyn Pook as witnesses to a catastrophe, transfixed by its totality, muted by its incalculable human toll. Pook's faintly beautiful, profoundly sad music is all that hovers above her a... more »shen, apocalyptic landscapes, one we dare not survey too long, it seems, lest we suffer the fate of Lot's wife. Pook's ability to summon such imagery--via patient, edgy, atmospheric use of voice, strings (viola, violins, cello), and electronics--is what led film director Stanley Kubrick to invite Pook's participation on the original soundtrack for Eyes Wide Shut. First released in 1997, Flood contains two selections that were modified for the film: "Migrations," a hypnotic work with Middle Eastern textures and Persian vocalists, heard during the film's orgy scenes, and "Masked Ball," where Pook achieves an ominous effect by playing the chants of Romanian priests in reverse. The album's most arresting work may be "Oppenheimer," an evolving, multicultural choral requiem prefaced by a reflection on Hindu scripture spoken Robert Oppenheimer, an inventor of the atomic bomb. It is affectingly reprised in the album's haunting final track. A bleak and somber work, and an utterly absorbing one. --Terry Wood« less
On Flood, we join British composer Jocelyn Pook as witnesses to a catastrophe, transfixed by its totality, muted by its incalculable human toll. Pook's faintly beautiful, profoundly sad music is all that hovers above her ashen, apocalyptic landscapes, one we dare not survey too long, it seems, lest we suffer the fate of Lot's wife. Pook's ability to summon such imagery--via patient, edgy, atmospheric use of voice, strings (viola, violins, cello), and electronics--is what led film director Stanley Kubrick to invite Pook's participation on the original soundtrack for Eyes Wide Shut. First released in 1997, Flood contains two selections that were modified for the film: "Migrations," a hypnotic work with Middle Eastern textures and Persian vocalists, heard during the film's orgy scenes, and "Masked Ball," where Pook achieves an ominous effect by playing the chants of Romanian priests in reverse. The album's most arresting work may be "Oppenheimer," an evolving, multicultural choral requiem prefaced by a reflection on Hindu scripture spoken Robert Oppenheimer, an inventor of the atomic bomb. It is affectingly reprised in the album's haunting final track. A bleak and somber work, and an utterly absorbing one. --Terry Wood
Superb mix of global non secular musical denominations
radiobjork | 10/29/1999
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I first heard Ms. Pook's music on the "Eyes Wide Shut" soundtrack (the masquerade ball scene) and was blown away; if ever there was a necessity for music to permeate a scene in a film this was it. She incorporates a blend of the traditional songs from faiths across continents and mixes them, for lack of a better comparison than similar to your quintessential raver d.j. (though these are better and definitively more original :) "Oppenheimer" is my favorite, and if you let the last track run for a few minutes a portion of the song will play once more. I can't wait to hear more of her stuff - these hymns are awesome."
Wow!
radiobjork | Nasonville, RI United States | 07/18/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I had heard some of the RA samples on amazon.com, and I was blown away by how rich the music was, even on a bad quality clip. It's nothing compared to listening to the CD in a massive stereo. The music resonates through your ears and fills your soul with this energy that just overflows through you. The most powerful song, I think, is "Blow The Wind/Pie Jesu". It amazes me how two different songs can blend and dance together through your mind. Especially around 1:15 when the music blends with "Dona Eis Requiem". "Masked Ball", used in EYES WIDE SHUT, is the extended version, and is twice as long as the one on the EWS soundtrack. At first, the two minutes or so of ominous music gets tedious, but then the tenor voice comes in and the organ/keyboard cresendos to a powerful backing for the singers. This is repeated, forming the length of the song. "Oppenheimer" and "Flood" are also excpetional. Jocelyn Pook weaves here, a dreamscape of rich music that blows you away with its deiversity and melencholy beauty. A winner!"
The Queen of Rich Music
tatiana mamaeva | 03/05/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This CD is an almost religous experience. Ms. Pook, besides being a phenomenol musician and vocalist, is a trailblazing pioneer in her genre (which is basically just her). For an excursion to a future that is still steeped in the past check out this disk."
Discovery!
tatiana mamaeva | New York, NY United States | 04/11/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"What a relief to discover such a unique talent! I did not know that such a significant composer exists at our time. And it is a young woman! How come that only through the movie I could make my discovery! I was not impressed by the movie at all, except for the music - and that is how I discovered this refreshingly strong composer. Her music should be everywhere. I will make sure that all my friends who are mostly artists, writers and musician will learn everything they can about Mrs. Jocelyn Pook and her amazing, AMAZINGLY ORIGINAL, POWERFUL, INCOMPARABLE MUSIC!"
Mysterious, haunting and delicately dark
Brianna Neal | USA | 09/29/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
""Flood" contains the music written or rewritten by Jocelyn Pook at the request of Stanley Kubrick, to serve as the soundtrack for his film "Eyes Wide Shut." Pook's inspiration for the compositions (originally conceived as "Deluge," music for a Canadian dance company) was "linking up the two millenia - the year 1000 and the year 2000 - by means of myth, legends and fears about the end of the world." She "wanted the music to embody ideas and influences from both these ages, and to draw upon cultures as diverse as Hinduism and Christianity, Judaism and Islam." The result is a broody, eclectic and at times minimalistic fusion of medieval chant motifs, lush modern harmonies, childlike lead vocals, traditionally nasal world folksongs and chamber-style strings that alternately drone menacingly and pulse like heartbeats. It's an interesting and effective mood, though a bit laid back for a depiction of the end of the world. But to listen straight through can get a little monotonous sometimes, so "Flood" might be one of those albums whose tracks are better appreciated when mixed up with others. That said, "Blow Thy Wind" is a gently winning song that is engagingly developed, and the drum-laden "Goya's Nightmare" also stands out from the rest. Try Pook's other work, like "Untold Things" and the soundtrack for "The Merchant of Venice," and compare with James Newton's haunting, emotive soundtrack for M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village," and also (speaking of the end of the world) Richard Gibbs's laid back, minimalistic soundtrack for the "Battlestar Galactica" miniseries.