French Dispatch

ウェス/アンダーソンの最新映画「The French Dispatch」(※邦題『フレンチ・ディスパッチ ザ・リバティ、カンザス・イヴニング・サン別冊』)のOST。
20世紀フランスの架空の街にある米国新聞社の支局で活躍する編集者たちの物語。
ジャービス・コッカー、グレイス・ジョーンズ、エンニオ・モリコーネ、シャルル・アズナブールらの楽曲を収録。

Alexandre Desplats fifth collaboration with film director Wes Anderson, The French Dispatch features a lean, jaunty chamber music score that looks to instruments like harpsichord, banjo, and tuba as well as piano and strings. Embellishing Andersons hyperreal version of 1960s France and events surrounding a publication based on The New Yorker magazine, Desplats light touch here was heavily inspired by the works of French pianist/composer Erik Satie. Interspersed with score tracks on the soundtrack are songs and instrumentals ranging from the Swingle Singers and accordionist Gus Viseur, to American crooner Gene Austin and ye-ye star Chantal Goya, to segments of 60s film scores by Ennio Morricone and Mario Nascimbene. Jarvis Cocker makes several voice appearances in the film as Tip-Top, a thinly veiled version of French pop singer Christophe on a cover of Christophes 1965 hit "Aline." (Anderson and Cocker enjoyed making "Aline" so much that they recorded a whole Tip-Top album to accompany the soundtrack release.) Harpsichord and tuba open the soundtrack on Desplats stately "Obituary," which adds plucked strings and a simple piano melody before expanding its palette to include woodwinds and brass -- usually with just one player representing each instrument or section -- as they rotate solos. Most of the rest of the score follows that tracks example, with one-note-at-a-time keyboard lines and the feel of a combo more than an ensemble. Some of the more distinctive score entries take the form of the waltzing "Mouthwash de Menthe," the swinging "Kidnappers Lair," and "Blackbird Pie," which is musically illustrated by fluttery woodwinds and fanfare-like brass. While most of the 30 minutes of score here were tracked at Abbey Road Studios in London, the piano solos were recorded remotely by Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who captures the fanciful, off-balance spirit of the project on pieces like "Moses Rosenthaler." ~ Marcy Donelson