Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
The soundtrack to Australian Western The Proposition finds Nick Cave and Bad Seeds/Dirty Three violinist Warren Ellis crossing unfamiliar cinematic terrain. Comparisons to Ennio Morricone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly score are logical, but there is no coyote bellow to serve as The Proposition's fingerprint. And whereas Morricone's score is littered with the sounds of rough riding and Tex-Mex calamity, Cave and Ellis find tragedy and distress lingering in a spacious resonance between hushed notes. Ellis' droning strings morph with melancholy in "Happy Land." Drums in "Road to Banyan" shake like the tail of a rattlesnake gliding over sun-bleached sand. Cave's whimper in "Down to the Valley" flickers like a mirage on the horizon.
Moments of epic sadness give these songs a classical feel. But “Clean Hands, Dirty Hands” closes with Cave’s trademark songwriting; a reminder that this is indeed a Nick Cave album and the credits are rolling.
