Norman (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

iTunes Review

It’s not surprising that singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird’s first original film score proves he’s a good match for the medium. The soundtrack includes 10 instrumentals featuring violin and guitar as the primary instruments, surrounded by a variety of textures and treatments. Several tracks are brief vignettes less than two minutes long, but the album flows in a way that lets it all stand on its own as a piece of work. Songs are by turns moody and dissonant (“Cancerboy Strikes Again/Monsterstream,” “Build Up to the Fall”), beautifully melodic (“Epic Sigh/The Python Connection,” “3:36”), and melancholy (“The Bridge,” “Afterspeak/Things Come to a Head”), much as you’d find on Bird’s solo albums. Interspersed among the instrumentals are two songs written for the film (“Arcs and Coulombs,” “Night Sky”), plus “Darkmatter” from Bird’s 2007 release Armchair Apocrypha. The soundtrack also includes songs by The Blow (“S.O.S.”), Chad VanGaalen (“Rabid Bits of Time” from Soft Airplane), and Wolf Parade (a revised version of “You Are a Runner and I Am My Father’s Son”).