Title - 'The Loft' (Varese Sarbande)
Artist - John Frizzell
If you've not even heard of this film before, don't worry as you're in good company! The film, 'The Loft' has kinda slipped under the radar, with heavier scrutiny focused on Oscar material and such right about now. That said, 'The Loft' is still a great piece of cinematic "fun," albeit enhanced greatly by the soundtrack score from John Frizzell.
Frizzell ('Gods & Generals,' 'Office Space,' 'Texas Chainsaw 3D,' etc.) worked very closely with director Erik Van Looy to create a score for the film that augmented the intricate structure of the story. In 'The Loft,' Karl Urban ('Star Trek Into Darkness') and James Marsden ('2 Guns') star in the tense psychological thriller, a story of five guys who conspire to secretly share a penthouse loft in the city - a place where they can indulge in their deepest fantasies.
But, as you would expect, the fantasy becomes a nightmare when they discover the dead body of an unknown woman in the loft, and they realize one of the group must be involved. Paranoia seizes them as everyone begins to suspect one another. Friendships are tested, loyalties are questioned and marriages crumble as the group is consumed by fear, suspicion and murder in this relentless thriller.
Frizzell has created an incredible tense soundtrack score, by simply following the storyline across, and through its many flashback scenes. Indeed, it gave him an opportunity to augment his collective musical themes along with the storyline in a way that maps out various themes with their own soundscapes.
Basically, 'The Loft' is told through this succession of flashbacks, each retelling revealing a more intricate level of musical structure for Frizzell to expand upon. Ergo, Frizzell's musical backdrop allows the score to have its own themes to allow the web of a story line to reach maximum impact for the audience, each and every time.
Inclusive of live strings and low brass mixed with a panoply of oddball things, it's the stoic inclusion of a solo violin that plays one of the main tension riffs within the film that makes this soundtrack stand out from most all released in the past few years. The sound of the fiddle is manipulated and distorted to make it almost unrecognizable, for which 'The Loft' (as both a score and a film, in general) is greatly appreciative of.
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