MISCONDUCT SOUNDTRACK

Original Music by: Federico Jusid
Featuring a track by: Lee Coombs
Duration: 65 min
Label: Varese Sarabande

Misconduct is about an ambitious lawyer who finds himself caught in a power struggle between a corrupt pharmaceutical executive and his firm’s senior partner. When the case takes a deadly turn, he must race to uncover the truth before he loses everything.

The original music was composed by Federico Jusid, who has previously produced work for, among other productions, The Secret in Their Eyes, Isabel My Queen and also Ridley Scott’s less than stellar Exodus: Gods and Kings, writing additional compositions for the original score with Alberto Iglesias.

As with all soundtracks, the lengths vary hugely – from the 55 second ‘Art Gallery’ to the plus five minutes of the ‘Overture’. Rather like the sweet overture for the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind theme, the orchestral instruments have been mixed with synthesizer textures. As the composer says: “I used a large string orchestra, colored with woodwind and brass sections and some bold timpani, playing thematic material. My team did a wonderful job processing them electronically, to enable me to manipulate and blend them into the string texture. The result is that on top of all these electronic sounds you can hear a solo violin playing virtuoso passages with a lot of nerve, accompanying either our impulsive or our conniving characters.”

‘Overture’ starts with string stings reminiscent of Psycho and morphs into a theme with a little touch of Phillip Glass. The record sets out its thematic feel with track two – ‘What Comes Next is Our Secret’ – moody, a little eerie and with a clearly manipulated piano sound.

I have always liked the titles of film score tracks – a mix of ‘say what you see’ and hints at the plot. This one doesn’t disappoint in that regard either – ‘Fistfight at the Church’ – a string driven throb of a piece – being a favorite along with ‘Take His Head and Put it on the Wall’, which is not as violent piece as you may imagine, but rather a swelling and rather eerie little number with an insistent harp motif and an atmospheric melding of some background synthetic sounds with a lovely melody later in the piece.

The chilling titled ‘I Took Actions With My Own Hands’ is another string number, with some pizzicato and the odd menacing cello sting – again moving into synthetic atmospheres later in the piece.

‘Act As Normal As Possible’ was another title that caught my attention, although this was a rather more straightforward tune.

“This is a somewhat classical score, in the sense that it’s built on different leitmotifs, each associated with a character or a narrative line of the plot,” Jusid stated about creating the score. “Whilst the music has a structure mostly melodic and harmonic based – like most old school scores – played mainly by a large string section, there are abundant contemporary sound layers enriching the palette, in an attempt to hear a dialogue between the ‘old and the new’ languages.”

Federico Jusid has also composed works for concert hall for various chamber ensembles, choir and soloists and it shows – for the majority of the time this record bears listening to for its own sake, only rarely lapsing into more generic fare – ‘The Art Gallery’ for example starts out with some promise but disappoints.

Worth a listen.

Varèse Sarabande released MISCONDUCT – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack in February 2016.