Oh, how I have dreaded writing this review. So much so I’ve been mulling it over for approximately two months now. In it I have to admit that one of my favorite bands have done something so undeniably dripping with pretension that I just didn’t know if I could come to terms with it. What am I talking about? Deceleration Two, an instrumental soundtrack for films that you and I will most likely never see the majority of. The songs were partly improvised and partly scripted with all but the first recorded live by Joe Ferguson (Truckstop Studios) while Califone watched the films in the Ferguson Theatre at Chicago’s Columbia College. Now, don’t get me wrong on this one-- I think the idea for producing the background music throughout independent films is great! However, marketing the soundtracks without the availability of the films is what I find so damn pretentious. Listening to an instrumental soundtrack to a film you’ve never seen is a really interesting experience as you try to imagine what the film is like from the music and the hints of plot you may have read about in a review such as this one. This is fun for about one, two, or possibly three times through the album. Then it is horribly boring. Does the music stand up on its own as so many of Califone’s eclectic soundscapes do? Not really.
There is a somewhat redeeming factor, if you happened to have purchased Califone’s full-length Quicksand/Cradlesnakes earlier this year. The first film featured on the soundtrack, "Francis," is included on that disc. A great five minute short about an old lady who goads lazy bears in her backyard to kill her. Watching the film explains the quiet, brooding beginning to the corresponding first track on Deceleration Two and the uptempo, sprightlier beat about three-quarters of the way through and on ‘til the end. I guess this, at least, gives you some new ideas to imagine for the other songs films, right?
1. Francis
2. Fireworks (No Mail Days Are Sad Days) I
3. Fireworks (No Mail Days Are Sad Days) II
4. Fireworks (No Mail Days Are Sad Days) III
5. Salome: The Moon Is Chaste.
6. Salome: In the Palace of Herod
7. Salome: Effeminate Soldiers at the Cage of
8. Salome: ..Suffer Me to Touch Thy Body
9. Salome: The Young Syrian Slays Himself
10. Salome: I Love to See a Fruit in the Mark
11. Salome: Whatsoever Thou Shalt Ask of Me
12. Salome: She Dances
13. Salome: I Ask the Head of Jokaanan
14. Salome: Skull Ring in the Fist of the..
15. Salome: I Will Not Look at Things, I Will..
16. Salome: I Have Kissed Thy Mouth
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