Tzadik
2008
Film Works, Vol. 19: The Rain Horse
About This Album
It has been 22 months since Film Works, Vol. 18: The Treatment was released on Tzadik. While it's true that John Zorn has been outrageously busy with many other projects, including his writing and getting his wonderful second book of Masada compositions, Book of Angels, recorded by many artists, it nonetheless seems strange that there has been so much time between the releases of his soundtrack recordings. This series of cues written for Russian animator/director Dimitri Geller's The Rain Horse makes the wait utterly worthwhile. In his always entertaining liner notes, Zorn says that Geller initially approached him in order to license some tracks from the Book of Angels series for an animated film. Zorn asked to see some of his work and was taken by this story of an old dying horse who has fallen into a ravine and landed on a tree trunk -- the Tree of Life -- and has an awakening, a rebirth, as a final epiphany. Zorn recruited cellist Erik Friedlander, Rob Burger (who was originally going to play accordion but ended up, at the composer's request, playing piano), and bassist Greg Cohen. Quite a trio. For those looking for Zorn's more open and angular film compositions, this will come as a surprise.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3 and 4)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.