CD REVIEW - LO


Lo
Music by Scott Glasgow
MovieScore Media MMS10002
18 Tracks 56:08 mins

For their fourth collaboration with the composer, MovieScore Media releases Scott Glasgow's score for Travis Betz's Lo, a horror film with a difference in that it is largely set in one room, even though the main character "travels to hell to search for love and passion."
Glasgow's score, which features impressive violin solos by Mark Robertson, channelling Paganini, also draws upon Saint-Saens' "Dance Macabre."
Glasgow apparently realised the score in his studio, utlising samples, augmented by the aforementioned Robertson on violin and by his own piano performances, though often you'd swear he had a full orchestra anc choir at his command.
The opening track, "Summoning the Demon, Lo," builds powerfully to an orchestral/choral crescendo, then subsides before building again to another powerful conclusion. "The Possessed Hand" follows, and is much lighter fare, predominantly featuring plucked strings. Robertson makes his first appearance, producing devilish fiddle sounds on "Face to Face." It's back to the plucked strings for "Talking to the Hand," though this almost comedic cue becomes somewhat dance-like as it proceeds, and leads nicely into the Saint-Saens, featuring Robertson and Glasgow in tandem. The quite lengthy "Gift of the Magi(C) Book" follows and features a child-like, magical, music box-like variation on the same, but things soon turn into a quite comical little melody, replete with tuba lead, before a reprise of the opening leads to a dark, ominous ending, complete with a fragment of the familiar Dies Irae. This is followed by the largely mischievous "Lo Plays Games," and then the lengthy "Recitative & Silhouettes," with its playful accordion-like tune giving way to an ominous, low sustain.
The strident "The Demon, Jeez" is followed by the romantic and quite passionate "Love, Misunderstood," which again features the Robertson/Glasgow combi" in the most tuneful original piece of the score thus far. "The Power of Lo" brings this plaintive interlude to an end with more demonic fiddle-playing, becoming anguished and then mournful, before a sudden shock moment interrupts and leads to a harsh, dissonant ending; this dissonance continuing into "Demon Fight" before erupting into powerful and menacing action, complete with screaming choir; Robertson's weaving violin providing a more plaintive conclusion.
"Edge of Sanity/Justin Takes Control" finds Robertson's romantic violin struggling against, but eventually swallowed up by surging dissonance, before the music turns strident again, only to end with a heavenly choral re-introducing the romantic violin, which goes on to soar heavenwards, supported by Glasgow's piano in a gorgeous rhapsody for the subsequent "Duality." Robertson and Glasgow then see the score out with a straight playing of the love theme to bring the score to a tranquil close.
Three bonus tracks are included at the end of the score proper, though why at least two of them weren't featured within the score is a mystery; the first being "Camille Dances with Jerry," which again features the Saint-Saens, with demonic dissonance eventually overtaking it; the second, an increasingly powerful and dissonant choral in "Incantation; and the third being a harpsichord version of "Recitative."
I have to say that I approached this disc with some reservations, not having been thus far impressed by what I'd heard of Glasgow's music, but was pleasantly surprised at the quality of this score - certainly the best I have heard from him, and if he continues showing such inventiveness and mastery, I look forward to hearing much more from him in the future.
Go to www.moviescoremedia.com/lo.html for samples and details as to how to order your copy of this impressive score on CD, or as a digital download.