"Walker" (Astralwerks)
By Lucas Salg
Monday. Aug 15, 12:50 AM
Joe Strummer's neutered film soundtrack.

Alex Cox, the infamous director of such cult classics as Repo Man and Sid and Nancy, pretty much ran his career straight into the ground with a 1987 misfire called Walker. It’s a strange little movie, using the life story of 19th-century mercenary William Walker as a jumping-off point for all kinds of insanity, anachronistic oddities (people drink Coke and read Newsweek), and some startlingly ugly violence. It also features an original score by the director’s pal Joe Strummer, which is being re-released by Astralwerks with a couple of bonus tracks.

For all the movie’s forced weirdness and clumsy satire, Strummer’s score is surprisingly straight-ahead, taking its cues from the film’s Latin locales to create evocative mariachi-inspired mood music. Over a constant flow of lightly strummed acoustic guitars, Strummer lays down a bed of jazz piano, marimba, trumpet, and light percussion, occasionally contributing a vocal performance. It’s all well-executed and highlights Strummer’s vast musical vocabulary: his natural ability to write within any genre.

What it doesn’t really do is let any of Strummer’s ebullient personality shine through. Without Strummer’s signature vocals, the music is virtually anonymous: it could have been written by almost anyone with a working knowledge of Latin music. The opening number “Filibustero” is catchy enough, a Cuban-style samba number with lilting piano flourishes and mariachi horns, but wholly unmemorable. It’s the kind of piece you would expect to hear filtering out of the speakers in the lobby of a tacky Mexican resort. It unfortunately sets the tone for the almost the whole album: decent enough, but lacking personality. Apart from the film’s wacky, sometimes incendiary images, the score can only function as pleasant background music.

“Sandstorm” picks the energy level up a little bit with urgent guitar strums and a string section, but doesn’t really go anywhere, ending abruptly. “Machete” begins promisingly with an ominous, pounding piano, but quickly buries it beneath the standard guitars and barely-percolating percussion. “Latin Romance” takes a pretty melody and runs with it before murdering it senselessly with Kenny G-style saxophone. At this point in the album I began conjuring images of sitting in the dentist office waiting area. “The Unknown Immortal,” the first of the tracks to feature Joe Strummer singing, is a welcome respite from the Muzak, a swaying, vaguely boozy folk song. It snapped me out of my stupor and for three minutes, reminded me who exactly I was listening to.

There are bits and pieces of songs through the rest of the album that capture that same spark (particularly “The Brooding Side of Madness,” a haunting, minimalist piano piece), but overall the album is mired in anonymity. Obviously the score needs to be heard in the context of the film to be fully appreciated, which makes it tough for me to recommend the score on its own merits. Strummer completists and fans of traditional Latin music may find something to pique their interest here, but otherwise it’s a disappointingly straightforward affair from such a talented musician.
www.astralwerks.com

Lucas Salg

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