Soundtracks

Carter Burwell's darkly mysterious orchestrations play a significant stylistic role in both Barton Fink and Fargo, two of the best films from acclaimed independent filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, particularly in light of the oft-violent content of the Coens' stories: violence can of course be laughable when the characters are too goofy to be believed, and tragic when the characters are too believable to be goofy, but the Coen brothers' creations are somewhere in between. They strike a precarious balance between a broadly comic Beckett-esque absurdism and a more straightforward, three-dimensional naturalism. Consequently, Burwell's grave, sweeping scores are a crucial reassurance that the Coens are not taking their characters' personal tragedies less seriously than are their audiences.

A compilation of the material Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks recorded for two mid-'80s films, Quicksilver and Lorca and the Outlaws, Soundtracks is very similar in instrumentation to Genesis' Invisible Touch. Keyboards and drum machines dominate the album, which, in addition to the instrumental suites, includes three pop songs. "Quicksilver Suite" tends to rely too much on the recurring theme to "Shortcut to Somewhere," but the breathy keyboard theme that opens the piece is quite touching, and Banks has a flair for building interesting layers of synthesizers.