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Rating: Anyone familiar with Jim Jarmusch's cinema knows of the indissoluble bond between the American independent filmmaker's art and music. With his latest creation "Only Lovers Left Alive" (released in our cinemas last spring), this bond is intensified, even if only because one of the two protagonists (the unconventional rocker vampires Adam/Tom Hiddleston and Eve/Tilda Swinton) is himself a musician (the same mysterious pen that once composed for classical authors and today continues his work dedicating himself to the rock verb), and the music of this anonymous genius carves out moments of real protagonism throughout the film: more than a movie, an enchanting sequence of dreamy video clips aimed more at lulling the eyes and ears than stimulating the heart and brain.
Leaving the screening somewhat satisfied (with some perplexity linked to a certain underlying inconsistency and the idea that this time, more than usual, the talented director preferred to settle into exploring the more purely aesthetic side of his artistic vision), I nonetheless returned home with one certainty: that I would make the soundtrack my own.
Which is credited to the Dutch Jozem Van Wissem, with whom Jarmusch has already collaborated in the past, and the director's new band, SQURL (imagine the dots of the umlaut on the U), a brand-new trio completed by the trusty Carter Logan and Shane Stoneback. To the question "does this music stand on its own once disconnected from the film?" I can answer MAYBE. As a product, the disc is packaged quite well: suspended between the edges of an acid and smoky rock that distinguishes the "American" chapter, and the caresses of a Berber-flavored folk that marks the "North-African" counterpart, it appears so homogeneous, coherent, well-conceived, developed, and balanced in its components, that it ends up shining with its own reason for existence. It is, however, undeniable that, without the film's images, many "musical scenes" (because that's what we're talking about) lose the charm they emanated during the viewing of the film: understandable when considering that Jarmusch conceived, wrote, and realized these tracks as accompaniment (a great accompaniment) to his latest work.
The album focuses exclusively on the music composed specifically for the film (several tracks present in the film were not included, mostly gems for connoisseurs of American tradition, past and recent, among which the most significant names are Charlie Feathers, Denise LaSalle, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Bill Laswell), except for the song signed by the young Lebanese singer Yasmine Hamdan (who, incidentally, earned a substantial cameo in the film). And, as mentioned, the work is divided into two sides named "Detroit" and "Tangier," the cities where the two tormented protagonists dwell. And although SQURL and Van Wissem do not shy away from sharing the scene on more than one occasion, it is evident that in the first part, the electric and metropolitan moods of Jarmusch's band prevail, and in the second, the solo talent of the Dutch musician, focused on exploring the sounds derived from his instrument, the lute.
The first seven tracks comprise the most captivating phase of the operation: from the noise/drone regurgitations of the prologue "Street of Detroit," to the fantastic heavy/blues build-up of "Spooky Action at a Distance" (a true highlight of the work – impossible not to have the image of a Tilda Swinton dancing ecstatically, seen from above, materialize in your mind amidst the robust electric spirals of the track), passing through the “Tunnel of Love” sung by a raucous Madeline Follin (voice of the young American indie-pop band Cults) and the kraut-rock stomp à la Neu! of “Please Feel Free to Piss in the Garden,” throughout these seven tracks Jarmusch and his (aided by Van Wissem in a couple of instances) build a nocturnal and psychedelic rock, equally restless and voluptuous, tributary to the tradition of the more tormented blues, as well as the wildest indie-noise (with results very close to the rock/noir explorations of David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive”/”Inland Empire”). It's the exquisitely vintage world of Jarmusch manifesting powerfully, perfectly represented by the myriad of knick-knacks that adorn Adam’s bunker-refuge, champion and admirer of a world – made of dust, vinyls, vintage guitars, and analog gadgets of all kinds – now on the brink of extinction, to which Jarmusch looks with passionate, poignant, and fetishistic nostalgia.
The two parts of the album, far from disconnected, enjoy a structural mirroring that makes them one the reflection of the other (or rather, the two sides of the same coin): it’s no coincidence that a track named “Streets of Tangier” opens the portion curated by Van Wissem; and the second track, as already happened with “Tunnel of Love,” is also enriched by a female voice (this time featuring the mystical warbles of a Zola Jesus in a state of grace); the third piece is none other than the reprise of “Sola Gratia” (“Sola Gratia (part 2),” indeed), and so on until the apocalyptic end of the seventh/fourteenth track “This is your Wilderness.” More generally, it’s the same modus operandi that previously characterized the tracks of SQURL and now animates the instrumental excursions devoted to a musical ascension marked by the hypnotic sound of Van Wissem's inspired lute, delightfully lost in the labyrinthine intertwining of the Moroccan city’s mazes, city of the mind and soul. It’s the same psychedelic and winding journey/flee to an “other” dimension that’s not our brutish present, a dimension that, if in the first case is achieved thanks to the aid of “earthly” expedients, in the second takes the form of a spiritual journey. The electricity, the residues of guitar feedback, and the beats of SQURL return to taint the delicate plucking of the Dutch musician in four episodes, as if to emphasize the spirit of cohesion characterizing the entire work: a flow only formally broken (but not in substance) by “Hal,” the Hamdan track previously mentioned, which perfectly fits the "exotic" mood inhaled in this second part.
For fans of Jarmusch-the-director, it’s undoubtedly a must-buy, a work to place alongside that other important soundtrack with which it composes an ideal pair: that of the masterpiece “Dead Man,” entrusted to none other than the improvisational and visionary talent of Neil Young. For others, the fourteen tracks of “Only Lovers Left Alive” remain perfect background music, especially for those who, like Adam, love to wander around at night in their car through their city (which fortunately isn't Detroit) and/or remain sprawled on the home couch (which, unfortunately, isn't Adam’s) getting "a little high on something really intoxicating.”
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