Artificial Wonders - Today, We Close The Door

Hear The Track Here

Wouldn't really say that the experience of reviewing The Warmachine Part 3 Redux (February 2009) really introduced me to Artificial Wonders and it looks like we are in agreement. Today, We Close The Door is, I am assured, NOT a game soundtrack - for which I am very, very grateful. Nonetheless, the tingle down my spine when I noticed it was billed as Film Music didn't bode well. I'm not really a big fan of anything that smacks of soundtracks which is why - I suppose - my review of his first track was lukewarm, to say the least. The music (what there was of it) was quite reasonable, but its extreme shortness and style didn't give me anything to hang onto to describe whether the larger catalog of this musician was worth trawling.

Mind you, Today doesn't go much further than his previous tracks, weighing in at a puny one minute, forty two seconds. Does this mean, I ask myself, the whole fourteen track project this is a part of (see FAWM 2009 for more info) comes in at - tops - twenty minutes? Not that it really matters of course because you either like soundtracks or you don't and Today, We Close The Door is yet another example (albeit brief) of a composer that seems to have all his ducks in a row but I can't help wishing for a piece long enough that I could really sink my brain and ears into. By the time I've started to register this track, its over.

It's a simple enough piece, scored sparsely in the time honoured film music tradition and I can definitely see this being something that could be extended into something with a little more meat on its bones. The whole point of FAWN 2009 was to write fourteen songs in a month and, amazingly, the whole project racked up some 7375 songs over the month from musicians from all over the world. Artificial Wonders contribution to this is an album called Stories To Tell and all the tracks from it are available on his web page. Which has me wondering if I wouldn't be better served by hoovering up the whole album, at least then I'd be able to get a good, man-sized bite on this musician.

Moody film soundtrack, but short, very short. Recommended