{"id":10785,"date":"2015-02-19T12:14:52","date_gmt":"2015-02-19T17:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10785"},"modified":"2015-02-19T12:39:47","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T17:39:47","slug":"mp3-john-wick-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10785","title":{"rendered":"MP3: John Wick (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"JohnWick_s\"<\/a>Score<\/strong>: Very Good<\/p>\n

Label<\/strong>: Varese Sarabande<\/a><\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong> \u00a0October 27, 2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Tracks \/ Album Length:<\/strong> \u00a027 tracks \/ (67:13)<\/p>\n

Composers:<\/strong> Tyler Bates,\u00a0Joel J. Richard<\/p>\n

Special Notes:<\/strong>\u00a0 n\/a<\/span><\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Tyler Bates emerged in 2000 with his ground-breaking score for Get Carter<\/a> <\/strong>\u2013 ground-breaking for its seamless marriage of jazz, electronica, rock, and sublime digital processing \u2013 he demonstrated his knack for underscoring the physical actions and psychological state of violent figures driven by rage, vengeance, and a need to subjugate humanistic emotions to complete a simple task: acquire the target.<\/p>\n

That singular design mandated a score similarly driven by a specific tone which reflected that rage-under-pressure which, in the case of assassin John Wick, was steeped in deep personal tragedy. A man who lost his humanity as hired killer, briefly reacquired it through a tender relationship, and then dumped it in total when the puppy left by his dead wife was beaten to death by car thieves.<\/p>\n

Bates and co-composer Joel J. Richard designed their score to work within the film\u2019s use of jazz source cues, a few rock tracks, and heavy electronic pieces heard mostly during an extended nightclub slaughter, so most of the tracks fluctuate from heavy synth chords with sharp edges \u2013 a style reminiscent of Tangerine Dream\u2019s own ode to lonely antiheroes, Thief<\/strong> (1981) \u2013 to a main theme with a clacking rhythmic motor, cycling and ticking its way towards the next brutal confrontation between Wick and his target(s).<\/p>\n

The use of a wailing electric guitar is a genre clich\u00e9, but when done well or used alongside sonic effects and shifting percussion, it works as an aural depiction of a classic cinematic antihero whose violent lifestyle is slowly consuming him like a cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Mourns\u201d is typical of the introspective tracks where Wick is internally struggling with loss by subjugating it, resulting in a cue that can\u2019t assemble or settle into something melodic or whole, even for a few bars. To the flipside, \u201cBaba Yaga\u201d reflects the wariness of Wick\u2019s top nemesis who knows the depth of his deadly skills, and Bates & Richards use a threadbare theme rendition with pulsing textures and a hurdy-gurdy to accent Wick\u2019s mythic skills at focusing and finishing off his target with exceptional deftness. A percussive eruption with feedback and a rock backbeat accents Wick\u2019s revered status as the figure desperate clients use to kill \u201cthe fucking boogeyman.\u201d<\/p>\n

That gnarled combination of percussion and feedback is naturally developed into the score\u2019s menacing tracks, like the bass-drenched \u201cOn the Hunt,\u201d and especially the fast-action \u201cHotel Throw Down\u201d with sections that wind up and down, perfectly in sync with Wick\u2019s defensive maneuvers as he fends off and wipes out aggressors. While the source tracks work well alongside the nightclub massacre, this cue defines Wick\u2019s acumen for defensive tactics – moving, assessing, reacting, and firing before progressing to a safe zone. Bats and Richard accent the electric guitar with distortion and organic percussion before winding down the cue with another deconstructed main theme variation, with chords and tones trailing off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWarehouse Smack Down\u201d is more linear in the application of bass licks and hard drum hits, but there are plenty of ambient effects that spiral from guitar and drum hits. It\u2019s ostensibly one bass groove, pulsing and pounding towards a sonically explosive wrap-up, but the variations within the track capture Wick\u2019s progress instead of functioning as music wallpaper.<\/p>\n

Lakeshore\u2019s album features the score interpolated with source cues, and although several tracks have been re-ordered for flow rather than chronological film order, it doesn\u2019t water down the album\u2019s impact.<\/p>\n

Bates has spent a good chunk of his career scoring a variety of genres – he\u2019s often regarded as the go-to guy for horror, grungy fantasy, and sci-fi with mythological backstories – and yet it\u2019s tales of loners, where morals are grey and blemished by chunks of dirt, that he\u2019s arguably most at home, perhaps because he draws out the strengths of his instrumental palette for almost emotionally inert characters like Wick.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2015 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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Additional Links:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — Composers on IMDB: Tyler Bates<\/a> \/ Joel J. Richards<\/a> \u00a0— \u00a0Composer Filmographies: Tyler Bates <\/a>\/ Joel J. Richards<\/a>\u00a0—\u00a0 Soundtrack Album \u00a0— \u00a0Film Review<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Select Merchants:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" —<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" —<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a>\"\" —\u00a0BSX<\/a> —\u00a0Intrada<\/a> —\u00a0Screen Archives Entertainment<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Tyler Bates emerged in 2000 with his ground-breaking score for Get Carter \u2013 ground-breaking for its seamless marriage of jazz, electronica, rock, and sublime digital processing \u2013 he demonstrated his knack for underscoring the physical actions and psychological state of violent figures…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[3397,3371,438],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2NX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10785"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10785"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10814,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10785\/revisions\/10814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}