Walkabout: Original Film Score
The distinctive talents ofJohn Barryare perhaps best-known for largely inventing the musical language of theJames Bondseries, though the composer has enjoyed a long and successful career scoring a multitude of other films and recording pop and jazz as well. This release marks the debut recording of Barry's often surprising score for Nicolas Roeg's compelling 1971 meditation on cultural contrasts set in the Australian outback. Instead of leaning on the obvious choices of exotic percussion and the authentically aboriginal, Barry has infused the familiar elegance of his orchestral writing with unusual, almostMorricone-esque choral flourishes and used ethnic instrumentation only with great subtlety. The results are a compelling rediscovery, pastoral in their grace and gentle atmospherics. The album's second half is devoted to signature cues from a number of Barry's other overlooked scores, includingThey Might Be Giants,The Chase,andThe Corn Is Green, as well as the lush romanticism ofUntil Septemberand the brooding, evocative, jazz-tingedSéance on a Wet Afternoon.--Jerry McCulley