Arcade Fire, "Abraham's Daughter"

No, no, no--I'm not jumping on The Hunger Games bandwagon. Maybe I ought to be--my Dad worked on it when they filmed much of it in my home state, and I've adored Jennifer Lawrence since Winter's Bone (a phenomenally good movie and if you haven't see it, rectify that mistake as soon as you can). Plus I hear it's a pretty good movie and that the books are supposedly very well written in a pulpy, pop-lit way (unlike what I hear about a certain hit franchise about twinkly nosferatua): from what I hear, the series may be wittingly or unwittingly derivative of Battle Royale, The Long Walk et al., but Suzanne Collins apparently knows how to structure a thing so it tightly hums and drags the reader in with the relentlessness of a riptide. So I've heard, anyway. (I might need to find the time to read those things even if I don't get around to the movie.)

But I was driving into work the other day, and "Abraham's Daughter" came on the radio--and speaking of artists who know how to write in their medium even when the work may be wittingly or unwittingly reminiscent of something. The opening of "Abraham's Daughter" much reminded me of the beginning of Pink Floyd's "Obscured By Clouds" (from the soundtrack of the same name, for Barbet Schroeder's La vallée), what with the feedback drone and square beat, though the two tunes quickly go completely different places ("Obscured" to a spacey, guitar-driven instrumental; "Daughter" to an eerie, sing-song chant from Régine Chassagne pierced by those high acoustic guitar notes). It may or may not be a conscious influence; it doesn't matter, I'm not really trying to get at anything more than how awesome I think both tracks are and that I think Arcade Fire knocked another one out of the park.

The entire Hunger Games soundtrack looks like a helluva album, actually. Arcade Fire, The Decemberists, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, Neko Case, Glen Hansard, etc.--I remember when a soundtrack would consist of a bunch of b-sides and leavings and still have trouble getting my head around the fact that movies actually seem to be trying to put out good records these days and artists like the exposure so it's win-win-win for the movie, the musician and the audience. (The bloody Twilight soundtracks have featured Thom Yorke, Paramore, Iron & Wine, BRMC, Metric, Cee-Lo, Noisettes, The Joy Formidable and The Black Keys--good grief. No, I haven't picked up any of them, but now I'm thinking another advantage of digital downloads may prove to be it keeps your record shelf from making you look like you might be a twelve-year-old girl.)

Anyway, click the video, take a listen, it's pretty cool, don't'cha think?