Lo-Fi Wistfullness

One of my favorite batches of music this year is Jon Brion’s score for Michel Gondry’s lovely Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Like suspended fragments of ache- and best of all is a reoccurring theme of plucked acoustic guitars swathed in lo-fi vinyl hiss and pop (capitalizing on the seemingly inherent nostalgia and authenticity of vinyl culture and outdated media) and a soulful piano fragment that wistfully surges up into an anthem for the film’s lovers. (I’m thinking in particular of one of the films last scenes, where Joel and Clem briefly walk down the beach, just prior to entering the beach house- one of the most romantic, touching and triumphant to hit the mainstream screens in some time.) Brion’s score is the powerful undercurrent to Gondry’s gracefully phantasmal montage. The whole thing packs quite a wallop.