Every Once in a Blue Moon (Mini Album Review)

Drive Soundtrack (2011)

So very few movies come out to wide release that transcend the normal feeling of existence.

These occasional flicks leave us (well, some of us anyway) inspired beyond belief.

Like all great works of art, there is a uniqueness of feeling about them that exposes the unmistakable hand of a singular artist; a singular sensibility.

Drive is such a movie.

And while these types of movies usually contain soundtracks that are fully utilized as elements of intentional artistic expression and symbiosis, much more so than the average fare – (Blade Runner, any film by David Lynch or Stanley Kubrick are good examples of this) – every once in awhile a movie comes out in which the soundtrack (“sound” would be a better, less connotated word to use) is every bit as integral as the plot or the protagonist.

Drive is such a movie.

There is also that thing where every once in awhile a movie soundtrack seems to both encapsulate and define a specific cultural mode or moment (or an idea, or fantasy, about a cultural mode) more perfectly than just about anything else.

Lost in Translation did it. Singles did it. Garden State seemed to do it (I personally wasn’t the hugest fan, but it felt like I was the only one). Saturday Night Fever absolutely did it. Easy Rider. The Breakfast Club. The Graduate.

And yes, the Drive Soundtrack is most definitely such a soundtrack.

The soundtrack itself is really comprised of two distinct parts of very different feel and duration, that nevertheless integrate perfectly to create a fully wrought, aural-driven world.

First is the handful of more conventional ‘songs’ by electronic composer-producers such as Kavinsky & Lovefoxx, College, Chromatics.

These tracks manage to immediately set a psychologically foreboding tone while being incredibly catchy and somehow feel-good.

The other, larger portion is composed of the minimalist, synthesized, instrumental mood pieces by Cliff Martinez.

Certainly recalling the brilliant ‘ambient’ canon of Brian Eno, these each use the most spare and nuanced synthesized sounds and occasional beats to convey shades of isolation and atmosphere.

It’s like the sound of a lone being walking through a vast desert landscape.

Just beautiful.

To reflect the dual nature of this integrated whole, there need to be two recommended tracks:

The Recommended “EDM” Track is College & Electric Youth – “A Real Hero”

The Recommended “Ambient” Track is Cliff Martinez – “I Drive”