Love Happens shows Christopher Young in a light and bubbly mood – quite the change from his more familiar work in horror and sci-fi, where he regularly writes arresting scores rooted in experimentalism and musique concrete.

It’s also mildly befuddling to wonder why Young scored a standard romantic drama, but from the instrumental palette he’s chosen – acoustic guitar, marimba, piano – it’s obvious he was interested in writing a simple score that emphasizes the gravitational energies between people that attract and repel with gentle or furious force.

“It’s MMM… Good” for example is a playful, teasing cue that begins with a warm bass line, rippling vibes, and acoustic guitar carrying the cue’s short melody, after which a pair of male vocalists chant the cue’s title, evoking a slight jazzy, Caribbean flavour. The melody in “Crystal Flowers” is carried by marimba, and Young texturizes the rhythm with guitar strumming and hand-claps.

The cue “Kaleidoscope Christmas” is indicative of the free-flowing style where phrases are repeated over slight waves of strings, and minor changes in peripheral ornamentation provide slight changes in cues designed to support montages as well as characters moving busily from one point to another. The music pushes forward, and either winds down to a restive end point, or fades out after a quick chord change.

Most of the tracks run close to 2 mins., but Young has a handful of longer cues that carry a bit more dramatic meat, such as the lilting “Around or Through?” which pairs vibes and piano to create a shimmering melodic line, while rising strings gently convey mood changes before Young returns to the film’s main theme on duel marimbas.

The only signature ‘Youngian’ cue is “Mind Noise,” which begins with an unsettling mix of deep, intensified tones and waves of trippy, undulating sounds that shift from mid-level to deeply resonant. A bass pulse and sliding motif winds its way through the cue, and there are two points when some harmonic stability emerge. It’s hardly a thriller cue, but it’s filled with the unmistakable shading inherent to Young’s darker writing style.

La-La Land’s CD contains 16 tracks of light thematic material, and there’s a bonus gallery of seven tracks that seem to have been grouped outside of the score suite perhaps because they run contrary to the album’s focus on a light and dreamy style, and because some repeat thematic material too closely, and may have made the album a bit repetitive. The lengthy “A Consonant Cry” is a theme variation with duel guitars, whereas “A Dissonant Discourse” is a more acoustic variation of “It’s MMM… Good,” with acoustic guitars and tinny chimes.

The bonus suite and CD is closed with “Fast Toward the Eye (of Lorelei),” the album’s longest cue. Running just under 4 mins., it’s a fusion of light orchestra and an up tempo, easy listening style, with female choir providing busts of harmony in place of an overt theme restatement.

For Young’s most ardent fans, Love Happens is a pleasing if somewhat New Age-styled distraction, but the composer’s sensitivity towards mood and precise orchestrations ensure this rare foray into romance sounds sharp, and it also shows he can write a score bereft of melancholy.

© 2008 Mark R. Hasan