Film Music ?

This is an "original motion picture soundtrack" cd but probably not the sort of soundtrack or the sort of motion picture that you might normally encounter. Naqoyqatsi Life as War by the Philip Glass Ensemble conducted by Michael Riesman and featuring Yo Yo Ma on cello. This is the final, or at least most recent, in a trilogy of movies by Godfrey Reggio that are visual collages accompanied continually by the sound collage Glass creates. No dialogue or storyline as such but interconnected images on the themes of sanctioned terror and civilised violence on a global scale. As could be expected from such a theme, the music is soulful and downbeat, given a more human context by the solo parts for Yo Yo Ma in amongst the usual pulsing arpeggios of Glass's orchestrations. Although unlike any other film soundtrack, it does share with that genre diminution of the impact when removed from the visual context.