Sony Music Masterworks releases The Mitchells Vs. the Machines original motion picture soundtrack with music by composer, singer, multi-instrumentalist and co-founder of DEVO, Mark Mothersbaugh. The animated film follows an eccentric family in the middle of the robot apocalypse...

The score for The Mitchells Vs. the Machines consists of 36 tracks (1 hr, 04 min, 15 sec) and while I really loved the diversity on offer, I started to wish something I'm never normally a fan of. The tracks are presented as short, if sweet, music cues and I really wished they'd joined a few of the pieces together so that it felt more fluid.

Talking about the project, Mothersbaugh says: "Just thinking about working on this film during a once-in-a-century, world-wide pandemic makes you want to draw correlations between the story of the film and what was happening in this world (the so-called real world). Doing so really gave everything more meaning and added gravitas to an already amazing project to begin with. I will always remember this film for the added attention the pandemic allowed the directors and producers to bring to it, as we were able to work on an extended schedule. It gave us the rare chance to play with the parts, to get them just the way we wanted them and to make a dang-near perfect film!

There are too many highlights to mention, but I wanted to single out 'Katie and Linda' which has a "classic" Bond score feed to it, thanks to the use of blasting horns.

Overall you can't possibly complain that you don't get value for money here. While the cues aspect of it make it feel a little disjointed as an album, the number of memorable and beautiful themes are just to numerous to believe that this was composed for a single movie.

8

Darren Rea