You couldn't do much better for a soundtrack to David Cronenberg's adaptation of
William S. Burroughs' beat classic than have
Ornette Coleman team up with
Howard Shore, a film composer who keeps within the strictures of classic film score ideals and colorations, but explores them with the intelligence of
Bernard Herrmann. Coleman's free jazz complements the schizophrenia of the film and pays homage to the generation that preceded (and gave birth to) him, while Shore maintains the melancholic dread that powers most Cronenberg films. Like the film -- where the Algiers of the story might only be Bill Lee's imagination -- Shore uses Arabian elements sparingly, and in the context of the cool New York sound. Wondrous strange. ~ Ted Mills