Colin Towns ' score for the rude and sometimes brutish comedy in Rik Mayall's Guest House Paradiso (1999) is intriguing for the specific relationships and contradictions the composer's woven into the soundtrack.

A strolling lounge theme, elegantly delivered by trombone and a cocktail party rhythm section, provides a contrast to the disorder, vulgarity and strangeness of the rotting hotel where eccentric guests check in prior to a session of abuse, yet the lilting tones also possess a certain sleaziness, which enhance the insults as well as the guests' eccentricities.

Aside from a few rare orchestral cues like “Miss Carbonara,” “Oh Love,” and “Gino – One Fucky Guy,” much of the score is a quixotic set of moods and clamorous action – not quite cartoonish, but highly visual in conjuring up utensil tumbling to the floor, or whole walls ripped apart by some magnificent act of carelessness. Towns indulges in a bit of modernism for the most chaotic cues (“Sweet Dreams”), extracting organized metallic sounds from his jazz orchestral, and often relying on the strengths of his sharp brass instruments to punctuate onscreen antics.

“Have a Nice Day” is a good example of the clash between the film's main theme that keeps morphing from lounge to rock jazz and Latin, and a spiraling motif with piano and brass Towns uses to further pinch a character's stress factor.

Separated from the film, the score does have an abstract feel, and it stands quite well on its own as a broad comedic portrait, but the album's producers chose to mix in a number of sound effects and dialogue extracts, which ruin what could've been a sterling portrait of orchestral jazz madness. A few cues have the naughty verbal bits at the beginning and end, whereas others have minor sound effects like a police siren (“Radio Active Friends”) woven into the score, and are less obtrusive.

Towns' compositions still shine in their eloquent orchestration and bawdy and aggressive tenor, but it's a missed opportunity to allow listeners to develop their own images from the score.

To read an interview with Colin Towns, click HERE.

© 2008 Mark R. Hasan