Review
Mike Patton
From The Film and Inspired By the Book The Solitude of Prime Numbers (La Solitudine Dei Numeri Primi)

It's not much of a secret that Mike Patton is an odd fellow. Incredibly talented and carrying a relatively large fan base but, odd nonetheless. In the years since the demise of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle along with the extended downtime of his other bands (Tomahawk and Fantomas) he has managed to make a name for himself by becoming a composer. In the past few years he has done scores for films (Crank 2: High Voltage) and worked with some of the best known avant-garde composers and musicians (John Zorn among others). All of these things help to make it less odd when you find that this is a soundtrack of sorts that is for both a book and film by Italian writer and PhD holder Paolo Giordano. Less odd but still quite odd in itself.

So we are given a record composed by Patton and played by others that is both used in the film at points as well as much that wasn't. The overwhelming emotional trajectory of the film is played upon by Patton to create a constantly moving classical piece. The album begins with string swells and light piano touches helping to set a mood of confusion and slight melancholy. This is accompanied by a slowly building almost otherworldly vocal part. all of this occurs in less than two minutes and helps to give a good opening to the record that is most certainly done in a classical sense but never feels particularly traditional.

It would be hard to judge this as a traditional record as it is meant to be pieces to fit within the context of a story. Without that story much could be lost. Regardless Patton manages to build an emotional and mostly fulfilling record. This record tends to be better once the listener at least has the story in mind but, even without that it tends towards a strong sense of subtlety and beauty without ever seeming to play anything up or let anything pass by unnoticed.