2012’s Skyfall was the first James Bond film scored by Thomas Newman, who also soundtracked The Shawshank Redemption, Road to Perdition, Away We Go, and Finding Nemo. “Grand Bazaar, Istanbul” opens with an air of urgency as dramatic orchestral strikes bite and snap over a foreboding trill and hints of Eastern music tones. This is balanced by the following “Voluntary Retirement,” where soft brass arrangements swell and exhale alongside the gradual layering of skittering rhythms. In “Quartermaster,” the near-human voices of grainy woodwinds rub against the labyrinthine logic of looped electronic textures. Newman’s knack for injecting orchestral organics with elements of electronic music is prevalent throughout the Skyfall score—especially in the outstanding “Komodo Dragon.” There, the classic Bond theme song resonates through a grand orchestra, while off in the distance the pitter-patter of mechanized rhythms slowly builds and overtakes the movement in the middle. “Adrenaline” closes with Eastern-flavored electro kinetics.
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