DIGITAL ALBUM REVIEW - THE BIRD CAN'T FLY


The Bird Can't Fly
Music by Mark Kilian and Paul Hepker
Lakeshore Records
22 Tracks

On November 2nd Lakeshore Records digitally released Mark Kilian and Paul Hepker's score for Dutch novelist Threes Anna's directorial debut The Bird Can't Fly, a drama starring Barbara Hershey, which was originally released in 2007, earning The City of Utrecht Film Prize for Best Dutch Debut.
Kilian and Hepker previously collaborated on 2005's Best Foreign Film Oscar winner Tsotsi, and also Rendition and here they continue their exploration of world music sounds. CineMedia Promotions' press release describes the results better than I ever could, stating that the composers "have created a sensitive, yet powerful aural backdrop for the film; their use of flutes and distant voices, over a bed of buzzing and shifting slide guitars, lends an evocative and unsettled ambience that occasionally breaks out into bursts of hi-octane percussive muscle."
In addition to Kilian and Hepker's instrumental cues, they created a number of songs, a couple of which feature on the album, including "Mine," which is very Oliver Onions in style; and there is also a typical New Orleans-styled funeral march, featuring the voice of Inara George.