Between The Bad Seeds, Grinderman and The Dirty Three, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have been gloriously noisemaking together for almost 15 years now. More recently, the multi-talented Australian duo have been showcasing their more cerebral side, collaborating on the soundtracks for The Proposition (also scripted by Cave) and The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. This latest album is their score for director John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-winning The Road, some tracks from which have already featured on their excellent White Lunar compilation, released last year.
McCarthy’s haunting novel follows a father and son’s perilous journey across a devastated America in the aftermath of a global catastrophe that has caused a nuclear winter. Although gangs of marauding cannibals are at large, it’s really more of an environmental horror story than a traditional one.
In a recent interview, Cave described the score thus: “The movie is about the loss of things, the absence of things, the lack of things. The lack of the wife/mother is present in every frame of the film. The delicate edifice of the film holds the ache of her absence, tenderly and by the tips of the fingers. The music was composed as a direct response to the film.”
Needless to say, then, Hans Zimmer this ain’t! Occasional hair-raising, string-screeching moments aside, Messrs Cave and Ellis have composed a light, sparse and timeless score with a real sense of absence and loss at its heart. It’s a purely instrumental work, utilising cello, violin and a recurring piano leitmotif to create a clutter-free soundscape reflecting the bleak emptiness of McCarthy’s devastated world.
Not having seen the movie yet, I found their poignant, atmospheric and melancholic music to be a great companion to a rereading of the novel.
OLAF TYARANSEN
KEY TRACK: WATER AND ASH