Robin Guthrie, 3:19 Bande Originale du Film

review by dave heaton

In the liner notes, Danny Saadia, director of the film 3:19, writes that “Robin Guthrie’s humanity needs to be pointed out.” If that’s the case, this is the perfect means to clearly do that. The fact that it’s a film score no doubt has a lot to do with it, but there’s an emotional arc to these pieces that feels like it’s telling a story, or more precisely capturing the emotional sweep that lies in all stories, of fictional characters or real-life human beings.

I haven’t seen 3:19, or even read a description of it yet, but that doesn’t matter. All good film-score music can stand on its own, creating its own imagery in individual listener’s minds, outside of the film itself. And this music certainly does stand or rather walk alone; Guthrie has created distinct musical scenarios that are also always moving forward.

It’d be a mistake, though, to say that this music’s emotional side is new to Guthrie’s work. That would be to discount the huge personal impact that the Cocteau Twins’ music has had on people, or to mis-characterize that impact as intellectual. Guthrie is a pro at creating vivid, detailed moods through music, but those moods are always imbued with worlds of feeling – ambiguous feeling, maybe, but that’s what emotions always are: ambiguous.

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