Darren Fung’s Just Buried is a gilded musical canvas covering extremely broad aspects of mordant black comedy. Centered around an elegant, wry main theme, the score offers a really eclectic mix of sounds and stylistic fusions, yet it all forms a cohesive portrait of oddball human behaviour and obsessions.

The most welcome sounds in the largely orchestral score are harpsichord and cimbalom – two instruments that kind of became cliché in the sixties and early seventies in spy dramas, spy thrillers, and comedies.

Harpsichord figures in the giddy “Fortunes are Changing,” a dry little cue that’s set to a buoyant rhythm and contains some very lush orchestrations. A whistle sets up the harmonic pattern and rhythm, under which Fung adds soft drums, luxurious strings, and eventually has the melody branch off with solo piano and oboe.

Piano and cimbalom dominate “Vehicular Manslaughter,” along with soft passages on marimba. There are slight flashes of Thomas Newman’s American Beauty (1999), but the score’s craftsmanship is first-rate; Fung draws from a large instrument pool as well as styles – such as the gorgeous string and harpsichord piece “Pickles Has the Stick” – and he’s very selective in their application. There’s also attention drawn to subtleties, such as the reverb and cascading chimes in “Dirty Girl,” with its twisting tones and shimmering motif.

The orchestra’s might is exploited in some modest action cues where brass and rhythm dominate, and the emphasis on dark tones, rumbling sounds, and dissonance mark a clear demarcation point from the humorous cues that flow, glide, and are propelled by meatier melodic chunks.

MovieScore Media’s album features the beautifully engineered score, and while running just over a half hour, the album has an engaging dramatic flow.

© 2009 Mark R. Hasan