Step Across the Border (soundtrack)
Step Across the Border is a soundtrack double album by English guitarist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith, of the 1990 avant-garde documentary film on Frith, "Step Across the Border". The album features music from the film performed by Frith and other musicians, and covers ten years of Frith's musical career from 1979 to 1989. Music. "Step Across the Border" is more than a just a soundtrack. It includes additional tracks, for example, "Drum Factory" and "Candy Machine", that were written for the album by Frith from ambient sounds in the film. Discussing the  album, Frith said: The album also includes live music as performed in the film, for example "Houston St"; tracks from other albums that accompany scenes in the film, for example "Too Much Too Little"; and tracks from other albums that replace live covers of those tracks performed in the film, for example "Legs". Reception. In a review for AllMusic, Rick Anderson described "Step Across the Border" as an "excellent overview" of Frith's work. He said the music on the album ranges from "tuneful and charming to stark and forbidding", and was particularly pleased with the material from Massacre's  (then out-of-print) first album. Anderson rated "Step Across the Border" "highly recommended". Reviewing the album in "Leonardo", Stefaan Van Ryssen noted that "Step Across the Border" is more than a soundtrack: Frith "creates a narrative structure that parallels and complements the [film]". Van Ryssen said this narrative structure is the album's strength, but also its weakness. He described the tracks as "nice but anecdotal patches" that "lack scope and meaning in [themselves]" until they are "stitched together by an invisible ... thread" to build a story. But the listener is not given the means to easily recreate the  story, which Van Ryssen felt, may make it difficult to fully appreciate the music. Track listing. All tracks composed by Fred Frith except where stated. Personnel. The numbers below indicate the tracks on which the musicians played.