Records: Ry Cooder - The End of Innocence

I was bitter about life. Probably I was behind in my work. It was freezing outside. I was headed once again to the Medical School on a Friday Night, this time to see Paris, Texas by director Wim Wenders. As the lights went down in the auditorium, a man appeared on the screen, unshaven and raggedy, dressed in a black suit and a red cap, walking across a shimmering, yet desolate desert landscape.

The man said nothing, yet we in the audience understood him, for his world was periodically filled with the heavy hearted rattle of a glass bottleneck against steel strings. Immersed in the aural environment of Ry Cooder's dark, echoing slide guitar blues, I forgot my loathing and dissatisfaction.

On the inside of the dust jacket for the soundtrack to his new movie, Wenders recalls Cooder's technique for composing the soundtrack to Paris, Texas: "He doesn't sit down to write it. He watches. He watches over and over and over. And then he plays in front of the screen...until he uncovers the music that the faces and landscapes...are making deep down in themselves."

Unfortunately, I have not yet seen Wender's new film, The End of Violence, so I can't say how well Cooder's compositions complement the movie's Los Angeles setting and characters. What I can say is that after listening to the album three or four times, the music still fails to stand alone in my mind.

On some of the tracks Cooder has taken his signature country blues and infected it with electronic effects and weird computer noises. On others he experiments with synthesized drum tracks, while mixing in "natural" sounds of sampled horns, guitars, and percussive instruments. There is even a fast paced, but lame, hip hop track tucked in the middle. Sadly, all of this stuff ends up sounding dumb, like when metal bands get together with rappers. Or maybe it's as futile as trying to capture the feel of modern city life with a banjo and a pump organ. At any rate, it's just not working here. (Outpost Recordings)

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