Charlie A - Running Free

Hear The Track Here

I have spent years (and years and years) wearing down the lining of your eyeballs while reading my rants about this and that but none of my pet poisons has come close to the daddy and mommy of them all - the soundtrack. Over the time I have been reviewing like this, I have come across several hundred wannabe soundtrack producers but very few who actually achieve that aim. I don't mean slamming the track onto Soundclick (or anywhere else) and calling it a soundtrack because it ain't, it's a piece of music in a particular style. Put it together with a film, video, animation and then, and only then, is it worthy to be called a soundtrack. Got that?? Do you feel the sharp edge of my reason here? (Ed: noooooo) Well, neither do I but I think you get my drift. When I give Charlie A kudos it is because he IS a soundtrack producer and a damned good one at that.

Linwood Riley is another name I would associate with the same thing and lo; here they are together! Linwood featured some excellent scoring for Doctor Who and assorted DC Comics characters which you can see and hear here. As if that weren't enough, Trina Brunk is right in there too. This is a singer I once described as 'a cross between Tina Weymouth (as in Tom Tom Club) and the older female rhythm and blues singers. Whatever it is, this is an authoritative voice, one used with confidence and no mean skill' and she displays it to perfection on this haunting, highly evocative piece. All names - I would imagine - you would be familiar with if you follow the same leads I do. Let's just say, to see these three artists collaborating is something that is already in the must listen league - long before you actually hear it.

Yeah, yeah, you shout, but what does the damn track sound like?? Sublime. Wonderful. The sound of Freedom. Aaaiiiiieeee!!!! (Ed: uh oh he's gone over the top!) Let me explain why this has evoked such a reaction. In my youth I soaked myself in the native American Indian story, hoovering up anything and everything that told it - in whatever form. One of the enduring insights that stuck about that period of study was how wise these mis-used and forgotten people were about the world they lived in and why their freedom was so important to them. As harsh as American Indian society could be, it held important lessons about the nature of being and your effect on it (Ed: not a musical subject Gilmore, get to the point). Running Free (the song) is inspired by the Lakota Sioux saying 'Hoka Hey' used by Crazy Horse and essentially meaning 'it's a good day to die'. In essence, live life to the full while you have it, therein lies freedom. What??? All this from a little tune??? As a lady once screamed yes yes yes YES

MUST HAVE natural high.