Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ score for the film The Proposition would have arrived in my letterbox; back when I inundated with CDs to review. It was a busy time. Reviewing on radio, TV, in the newspaper and for magazines. I’d also just finished a stint of music retail. And so the conditions were primed: I was at that time a huge Nick Cave fan (I come and go now) and I was really into The Dirty Three (still the case). I was big-time into instrumental music (not just scores) because I saw it as a nice reprieve from the practice of ‘selling’ music by playing whatever was cool or sounded right in store. And reviewing music on TV was often about finding a hook, some simple back-story to sell in a sentence or two, point of difference.

So a movie score by a musician best known for being very lyric-driven, verbose, with a penchant for going wildly over the top, was a good sell. Here was Cave playing subtle. Also he had written the script for the film.

The score would have arrived in my letterbox before I saw the film – but I loved the film. And I remember sitting in the cinema to watch it and anticipating how the music would feel and sound in the show, with the images it was made for. But I had spent a bit of time with the score as just an album – and found it to my liking. It was really a showcase for Warren Ellis. And the first reminder that Ellis has been Cave’s saviour. Cave needs a right-hand-man and if he leaned a little too heavy on Mick Harvey, he found the perfect foil with Ellis. Warren has been the glue for every Cave project since the mid/late 90s.

And the duo of Cave and Ellis now has a solid career as soundtrack composers. That started here. Both had music in films before The Proposition. But this is the starting point for them as a workable duo. And the music here – low-key – is closer to The Dirty Three than The Bad Seeds. You of course spot notes from both. And you hear something else altogether.

There are better soundtracks from the duo, more immersive, more considered. But there’s a rawness to The Proposition – it holds me still. I hadn’t listened to it for quite some time but returned to it recently. It’s transportive. Now I need to see that film again. Such a great film.
What A Good Score is a new series here at Off The Tracks – looking at movie soundtracks, the good, the band and the astounding…