Frankie's House - Beck and Jed Leiber

01. Jungle
02. Requiem For The Bao-Chi
03. Hi-Heel Sneakers
04. Thailand
05. Love And Death
06. Cathouse
07. In The Dark
08. Sniper Patrol
09. Peace Island
10. White Mice
11. Tunnel Rat
12. Vihn's Funeral
13. Apocalypse
14. Innocent Victim
15. Jungle Reprise

Recensione

Soundtrack to the film about a combat photographer in Vietnam. Synth player Jed Leiber is the only other musician; he adds in rumbling bass noises and a few programmed drum parts with crashing toms whenever they need to sound like a band ("Thailand"). Leiber takes a low-budget, conventional approach, piling up fuzzy sustained synth tones to create drab, creepy, vaguely East Asian soundscaping. He does use a fairly broad palette, but he's often in poor taste ("Apocalypse," with an annoying faux-Gregorian chant sound). When he breaks from the mood music, he's just eclectic, veering even in a single track from quasi-classical romanticism to thudding heavy metal ("Love And Death"). And although Beck is co-credited with all the tunes, he lays off as much as possible, often just playing impressionistic fills. So there are hardly any real tunes: a rote MG's imitation (the up-tempo R & B instrumental "White Mice"), a generic, recycled hard rocker ("Cathouse"), and a snappy cover of the striding 50s standard "Hi-Heel Sneakers," whose straightforward blues foundation lets Beck show off his powerful, super-precise phrasing. There's also Leiber's palatable main theme (the sleek, slightly funky New Age shuffle "The Jungle," reprised at the end).