Charlie A - Sinful

Hear The Track Here

After a couple of very worthwhile collaborations, Charlie A returns to the solo film music side with Sinful. Now you may be forgiven for imagining me frothing at the mouth right now. You know, probably only too well, my abiding, passionate hatred for film music off the bone (as it were). The place for film music is in films and about the only artist I will tolerate to supply me with these kinds of treats (??) is Charlie Armour (Charlie A, geddit??). There again, Charlie's music has actually appeared in films so there is a certain professionalism on display - especially melodically - that makes Charlie's (makes quote sign) film music able to stand on its own.

Sometimes beautifully.

There is a certain something about the instruments he chooses to illustrate his musical vision that has always appealed to me, right from the very start. That skill is only too evident on Sinful, even if such sinfulness only lasts for little more than a minute and a half, but such is the way with film music. It's also yet another one of Charlie's hallmarks is that he gets it said in the fastest way possible and then out of your hair, the lightest of touches. Most people I know have the same lip-curling reaction as me to this genre, considering it pretentious and overblown, but Charlie A is the exception to that rule. His tracks are always short and sweet.

Sinful is essentially string driven, with little touches of percussion to spice up the mix. It's in the way it develops that Charlie A shows what makes him stand out. Even if you don't like the genre, he writes the kind of music that draws you in. That 'whats around the next corner' feeling. Mind you, it's short, bloody short, not much more than a build even if it is a blindingly effective build and it has a really abrupt ending that is akin to falling off that selfsame high to splatter ingloriously into the silence. Good, but a little more meat on its bones would have done it no end of favours.