Cinematic and luxurious, Dave Anson’s four track soundtrack for Penny Fuller’s ‘My Over There’ has a certain weight to it, a certain air of importance, and an opulence of sizable impact. Using predominantly pianos and violins as the central arrangements, Anson’s using the music to draw a picture of paths that cross but never quite meet. The album carries with it a weight of anguish, a feeling of sadness and tragedy that mirrors the same emotions that the film brings out. The morose nature of the piano keys being played behind that ever so evocative string section on ‘A Love Story’ just hits you with so much momentous depth of narrative that you can feel that aching sensation carried deep within the characters.
My Over There is minimalistic while also being grandiose. It’s a strange contrast, of seemingly opposed forces, but when you hear it you understand that juxtaposition. A talented film composer who’s done plenty of work with a myriad of different artists and scores in the past, his latest record might be rather quick, but its impact is undeniable. The soundtrack is hauntingly bewitching, a beautiful and serene mood that carries beneath it a whole lot of weight and worry that has you in anguish and tragedy.
A score’s strength is in my eyes defined by what it adds, the weight of emotional resonance that a minimalist background arrangement can add to a scene’s emotions. On ‘My Over There’, Anson’s able to do that beautifully.