Michael Andrews - Me AndYou And Everyone We Know

Fri 28th Oct, 2005 in Music Reviews

Seen Donnie Darko? If you answered yes – and if you’re younger than twenty five, I’m going to guess you did – then you’re already familiar with Michael Andrews’ work. Even if you missed that deserved cult classic, you’ve probably heard Andrews’ and Gary Jules’ melancholic re-working of Tears For Fears’ Mad World, which eventually made its way to the top of the British charts in 2003.

Andrews’ Darko soundtrack was sublimely creepy, spooky and eerie, all big, long bass notes, surging synth strings and appropriately otherworldly sounds. On this – his score to the critically acclaimed Sundance hit Me And You And Everyone We Know – he hits some different notes, bathing the film in warm, nostalgic keyboards, Eno-esque ambience and nursery rhyme melodies. He flits impressively from playful moods (What’s that Sound? sounds like a child experimenting with toys) to dour restlessness (Peter and Sylvie is closest to his Darko work, with the fated sadness that implies).

Indeed, Andrews’ work here is near to soundtrack perfection, both memorable, evocative and touching enough to enhance the film and subtle enough never to overpower it. It is simultaneously – and paradoxically – airy and transient, like the fleeting, semi-constructed memories of youth, and heavy, downtrodden, like a bad day stuck in traffic. It moves slowly and deliberately, forming half-there memories, black, grainy and grey like photos of your grandparents when they were young. It is, in fact, everything you could want from a soundtrack.

Sure, it never quite reaches the thematic heights and leitmotifs of, say, Thomas Newman’s divine American Beauty soundtrack, but it never tries to. Instead, it forms and compliments images, touches sadness, yearning and ends up at love. It’s a fairly experimental work, with ghostly single-woman choirs, the crackle of a 45rpm single and drowning, underwater keyboards.

Also included on the soundtrack is the lovely 5 On A Joyride by four-track genius Cody ChesnuTT, which sounds as if it’s been scored by a ballerina in a jewellery box. ChesnuTT’s voice cracks, and the keyboards crackle, and it all starts to seem, somehow, like you’re being sung to in a cluttered basement by a charming, lonely man you met that morning while waiting for the bus.

Any Way You Want Me by Spiritualized also turns up, a cinematic, soaring, lo-fi effort that fits into the soundtrack on the basis of mood more than sound. A Summer Long Since Passed by Virginia Astley is the third and final non-Andrews track, and its possibly the most nostalgia-ridden composition you’ve ever heard, all young girls singing, skipping ropes, and autumn leaves falling on perfectly manicured suburban lawns.

But ultimately, it’s Andrews’ efforts that shine most brightly, his near-perfect score only briefly offset by the songs with more direct, obvious charms. Andrews’ score is subtle, nostalgic and, most importantly, rather beautiful.