Jansch, Poster, The Squid and the Whale

Play it: Rssmbld Sndtrck The Squid and the Whale
Play it: Noah Baumbach's Favorite Albums for Dusted Magazine (published originally here)

At first glance, one might not be surprised at the quality of songs on the soundtrack to The Squid and the Whale, given that Wes Anderson (The Life Aquatic) produces and co-writes the film. But it's time to start giving music supervisor Randall Poster some credit. This is the third project he and Anderson have worked together on, the previous two being movie and soundtrack greats Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. Where the previous two films had a sort of ambiguous time setting (leading to some interesting music choices to blur time even more,) The Squid and the Whale has a setting firmly placed in the 1980s. Poster (along with Anderson and director/writer Noah Baumbach [reader Sean points out NB has more to do with the choices then I'm giving him credit for... he's probably right.) doesn't rely on the eighties necessarily for inspiration, finding it instead with the folk music of the late sixties (Bert Jansch) and 1970's (Loudon Wainwright III.)

As I've mentined before, Jansch is ripe for a revival ala Nick Drake, and while I don't think this soundtrack will do it, having three songs in the release certainly a push in that direction. His influence on folks like Drake, Donovan, Neil Young and Jimi Page makes him an influence on countless more indirectly (Young even went so far as to say "Jansch did for the acoustic guitar what Jimi Hendrix did for the electric".) Loudon Wainwright also has a couple songs, and, almost as a rebuttle (the film centers on divorce after all) Wainwright's ex-wife and sister-in-law (Kate and Anna McGarrigle) have a track as well ("Heart Like a Wheel".) Through in some John Phillips ("Holland Tunnel") and you've got more dysfunctional family fun! Dean Warhem (formerly of Luna, Galaxie 500) provides the original score songs, written much in the style of these late 60's to mid-70's scribes, even covering Pink Floyd's "Hey You" for the release (the Roger Waters-written original was in the movie.)


The 80's do get some representation, though, as on the release there's the great The Feelies ("Let's Go" first and currently only song in Rhapsody library)to go with The Cars "Drive" and Blossom Dearie's infamous Schoolhouse Rock turn "Figure 8." For the rssmbld sndtrck, I've added two more bits from the era that were in the film (but not in the released soundtrack.) One is the ubiquitous "Run To You" by Bryan Adams, and the other is that pantheon of 80's soundtrack music "Love on a Real Train" or, better known to folks as "that theme song from Risky Business" (by Tangerene Dream.)


But getting back to Randall Poster, it's interesting to note that got his start on the Larry Clarke movie Kids. The film's score featured such diverse acts as John Coltrane, Slint, A Tribe Called Quest, Sonny Rollins, Brand Nubian and Lou Barlow vehicles Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion. Meanwhile, the released soundtrack for Kids put together by Barlow, explaining why so many of his songs appear on the album (and not in the movie.)

Since that time he's done, he's done some pretty interesting soundtracks for movies, here are just a few of the films (in chronological order) that he supervised:
I Shot Andy Warhol
SubUrbia
Velvet Goldmine
Rushmore
Dogma
28 Days
Meet the Parents
The Royal Tenenbaums
Old School
The School of Rock
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
The Aviator
Jarhead

In the coming days (weeks?) I'll pull give some of these the ol' Rssmbld Sndtrck workover.... how 'bout we call them Poster posts?

Previously:
Freak Folk Beginnings (Bert Jansch)

tags: playlist, music, movies, soundtracks, wes anderson, randall poster, bert jansch, the squid and the whale