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JAMES NEWTON HOWARD
The Village Hollywood Records
*****

James Newton Howard's score for M Night Shyamalan's historical chiller The Village is the fourth and best collaboration between the director and composer. Seamlessly merging electronic sounds with acoustic instrumentation, and elegant melodic lines with sinuous polyrhythms, Howard creates a densely evocative sound world, suffused with brooding menace and delicate melancholy. What distinguishes The Village from Signs or The Sixth Sense, however, is its rare expressiveness. Newton Howard establishes, varies and develops his signature themes from one cue to the next, infusing each one with a distinct musical colour and tone - harp, strings, and solo violin. The dominant theme, first heard on solo violin in Noah Visits, exquisitely performed by Hilary Hahn, infuses Howard's score with an astonishing emotional and visceral force. Beautiful, haunting and a bit scary, The Village strikes the perfect balance between the generic and the artistic. www.thevillage.movies.go.com Jocelyn Clarke