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 (InSync)
A must-have soundtrack of a landmark Australian film
A film the speaks volumes more than what’s said, Noise needed a score that could articulate the same subtle profundity as its onion-like script, and perhaps would not have been so flooring without Bryony Marks’ at once minimal and melodramatic effort. Fluttering piano and furtively plucked strings tiptoe around the listener as if moving over broken glass (the kind left about the floor to guard from an enemy’s approach) while mournful strings lull to and fro like a boatman lost in early morning fog. In its quieter moments, the score extends moments longer than moments last, with suspended strings arching over space like the measured journey of a tightrope-walker; and with a fatalistic misstep, the tightrope-walker falls into a warm wave of empathetic orchestration. Bryony Marks seems to perfectly encompass the dichotomy of minute particulars, like the slight twitch of the protagonist’s brow, and massive universals of life, purpose, Heaven and Hell. At less than 30 minutes, the score makes its visit a short one, but it lingers for longer — after album closer Gone drifts away, its absence envelopes the listener like a funeral wake, and suddenly silence sounds quite noisey (is my fridge really that loud?).
What made Noise’s experience aurally thrilling was the blurring of the musical scoring with sound design, an example being the cacophonous finale. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, the noise of Noise has been omitted from the soundtrack keeping the music free from distortion. I, however, would have liked to hear the disc end with the wall of sound that the film did.
****½
PAUL RANKIN
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