CD REVIEW - IN TOO DEEP REVISITED


In Too Deep Revisited
Music by Christopher Young
Promotional Release
8 Tracks 35:59 mins

It's not often a composer gets to revisit a score and put out a CD that is more representative of how he would have wished the original CD release to have been, but Christopher Young does so with this promotional release of his music for the 1999 Omar Epps crime thriller In Too Deep.
The score was, as the composer reveals in his booklet notes, "the first time I had relied heavily on synth drones with slowmoving chords and minimal melody on top." He did however collaborate with Dave Hollister and Frank Fitzpatrick on the song "Give Me a Reason," performed by the former, but this was only included on the song CD. For the score CD, not only was Young not allowed to include the song, but also any reference to it in the score. Here then, not only is the song reunited with the score, but also its references, are restored, making quite a different listening experience from the original Varese Sarabande release.
"Give Me A Reason," as I said, opens and closes the album, and it's a fine song, with a soulful vocal by Hollister. The bluesy, jazzy feel continues throughout subsequent tracks, with much expressive use of Sal Marquez's trumpet, Chuck Manning's sax, and piano, given rhythmic and percussive support, with emotive string synths. "Give Me A Reason" is reprised a couple more times, concluding the disc with the song CD version.
All the tracks are lengthy, hence only eight of them, which gives room for plenty of development in the music.
You can order your copy of this interesting project from www.buysoundtrax.com.