Audio CD review:
Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz, John Zorn, John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Kenny Wollesen, Mark Feldman - Film Works, Vol. 18: The Treatment

Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz, John Zorn, John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Kenny Wollesen, Mark Feldman - Film Works, Vol. 18: The Treatment

Band: Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz, John Zorn, John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Kenny Wollesen, Mark Feldman Title: Film Works, Vol. 18: The Treatment Rating: Release Date: 21 March, 2006 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Treatment 2: Romance 3: Why Me? 4: Family 5: Marking Time 6: Anxieties 7: Freud's Rondo 8: Totem and Taboo 9: Rush Hour 10: Bad Dreams 11: Uncertainty 12: Happy Ending

Customer Reviews Magical Vibraphone! Chris Eigeman's character, "Jake Singer," is a sad-sack with romantic longings & hidden reserves of great sweetness. The ongoing debate: should the music serve the story or should it be evaluated independently? I've seen THE TREATMENT twice now & I thought the score was perfect. Zorn's magical vibraphone helps you believe he will eventually conquer his fears & turn his "badly-nourished lover" lose. Now that I have the CD, I'm sure I will play it whenever I need a touch of magic in my own life. Zorn's violin also gives Jake's world a touch of klezmer. Jake has the soul of a mensch, & Jewish blood definitely flows in his veins. 3 1/2 stars-- Zorn scores a romantic comedy. Truthfully, I was a bit stunned to consider the notion of Zorn scoring a romantic comedy, and evidentally so was he (in the liner notes, Zorn states that he considered the idea of scoring a romantic comedy "ridiculous"), but evidentally director Oren Rudavsky's persistence resulted in Zorn taking the job, the resulting score, Zorn states, is overtly influenced by tango, although truthfully I hear little of this in the music-- it is a piece that is firmly lodged in the Zorn film scoring vocabularly-- his scores seem to have a unified approach to me, but it is a bit darker and a bit more mellow then usual. Volume XVIII in John Zorn's Filmworks series is the score to a romantic comedy called "The Treatment". Zorn chose an instrumentation similar to the tango, with violinist Mark Feldman serving as the primary lead voice supported by accordian (Rob Burger), vibraphone (Kenny Wollesen) and bass (Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz), with guitarist Marc Ribot lending his formible talents on two tracks. The result is a highly rhythmic blend, with all instruments but violin often playing rhythmic and implied rhythmic figures and Feldman floating over the top, the net result is surprisingly diverse, whether moody and irritable ("Why Me?", "Anxieties"), lush and delicate ("Romance"-- check out Feldman's counterpoint, it's among the prettiest things Zorn's ever written) or tense and apprehensive ("Rush Hour", a chance for Wollesen to shine). The two tracks with Ribot add an extra layer to mix, filled with intertwining lines that manage to feel both loose and rigid at the same time. Still, as nice as this one is, there's something about it that didn't quite work for me overall-- it's a pleasant enough piece filled with different themes and ideas, and Zorn gets the most out of his instrumentation, but It just didn't grab me the way Zorn's best soundtracks ("Invitation to a Suicide", "In the Mirror of Maya Deren") have. . You can see a complete list of all Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz, John Zorn, John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Kenny Wollesen, Mark Feldman discography, or go back to the Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz, John Zorn, John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Kenny Wollesen, Mark Feldman tabs