Thompson, Richard
Music From Grizzly Man
Richard Thompson's score for 'Grizzly Man' - Werner Herzog's 2005 documentary film of real life and death in the Alaskan wilderness - is one of the best-kept secrets in the British guitarist's epic canon: an instrumental masterpiece disguised as a movie soundtrack. Recorded over two days as Thompson played live in the studio to Herzog's footage - mostly alone, at times in chamber settings with cello, piano and percussion - these tenderly detailed melodies and quietly visceral improvisations are cinema in their own right, rendered with pictorial instinct and the dazzling technique forged in Thompson's lifelong passage through traditional folk, psychedelia, North African modes and intensely personal songwriting.