Special Notes:

12-page colour booklet with liner notes by composer Ryan Shore and director Jonathan Meyers / Limited to 1000 copies

Built around a simple, quiet little theme, Ryan Shore’s score manages to keep the viewer alert when the film’s original storyline of an ill-bent, morally wayward youth and his killing of a classmate during a revenge-prank is hijacked by a police investigation, as well as the mysterious past of a teacher being set up for the student’s murder.

The setting of a Catholic boy’s school naturally mandates an ethereal, quasi-religious theme rendition, but Confession is a fine example of music that moves quietly in the background, rarely drawing attention to its own small brilliance, yet adding a wealth of subtext sometimes missed by the director.

The semi-tragic theme is given some witty variations, each distinguished by some starkly different instrumentation. The opening choral track “Philosophy” (which actually doesn’t start the film) is followed by the morbidly amusing “Luther Flees,” with string bass, light bongos, and subtle synth strings as Luther runs away from a street accident, and changes out of his fake priest habit after buying illicit goodies at a local pharmacy. Shore reserves this wry arrangement for moments when Luther is in the midst of a scheme, and it reappears (briefly) in “The Bloody Robe” as Luther attempts to plant key evidence by the door of Father Kelly’s room.

“Bicycle,” in turn, flows with Irish flute, acoustic strings, and a jazz fusion bass groove, and it’s a compact yet colourful portrait of Luther, the youth who gets his kicks being the go-to guy for illicit substances, videos, and print material within the rigidly disciplined school.

Confession is a blend of sampled and organic sounds, and more formal orchestral sounds are reserved for the film’s pivotal dramatic moments, such as heavy brass and sampled vocals for the boy’s death (“Luther Kills Bennet”); wrenching oboe and piano in “Choice”; and “Kelly’s Flashback,” a tender theme variation for Father Kelly’s recollections of the day his younger brother died - an event that pushed him to find solace, and perhaps wash away guilt by joining the church. In this cue Shore hovers around warm strings with heaving density, emphasizing guilt and tragedy without unwanted heavy-handedness.

Unsettling harmonics dominate the post-death “Aftermath,” with an emphasis on grungy ambient metallic drones and reverberations, and retarded shimmering tones. That novel blurring of vocal emulations and strings underscores Luther’s post-haste murder confession to Father Kelly, and the heavy bass notes evoke a cathedral organ, which infer the presence of a high spiritual moral presence that will ultimately pass judgment over Luther when the wrong man is about to be charged with the boy’s murder in the final reel.

More decisive orchestral writing comes into the otherwise dim “Luther Shoots Robbie,” but rather than score the scene with a big orchestral surge, Shore does the reverse, and uses a solo synth woodwind, and long, slowly rendered chords. That musical design also figures in “Choose,” where Luther appears to relent in his own self-destruction, and agrees to surrender himself to the police in front of his peers and the school’s appalled clergy.

 “Confession” is a full orchestral version of the main theme with lovely woodwinds that create a semi-tragic waltz, while strings often reach pitches and pliable notes akin to the boy’s voice in the vocal versions “Philosophy,” “Requiem,” and “Sacred.”

La-La Land’s CD features a crisp recording, and the booklet includes liner notes by Shore and director Jonathan Meyers.

© 2010 Mark R. Hasan