Thursday 27 March 2014

Thursday Tune - Gortoz A Ran by Hans Zimmer

This week for the Thursday Tune I've picked a song from one of my favourite movie soundtracks - Gortoz A Ran from Black Hawk Down.

The Song


The Black Hawk Down soundrack contains a wonderful blend of international styles, Gortoz A Ran stands out for me as a beautiful and haunting song. The title means 'I await' and is sung in Breton a Celtic language from northern France. To be honest I don't what the lyrics mean, it's enough to listen to the two vocalists sing. I'm sure that's very lazy of me, it's quite easy to look them up, but I've often found that the voice is an expressive instrument on its own, even without lyrical meaning.

The vocals are provided by Deniz Prigent and Lisa Gerrard, they both sing with such feeling that I experience tingles on my scalp, and yes that is often my way of recognising a song that moves me :-)

The Band

Hanz Zimmer was the guiding light for the Black Hawk Down soundtrack and I think he showed some interesting choices with the blend of music for the soundtrack. For me it helps lift what was already an excellent film anyway. The Gladiator soundtrack is also a shining example of a film soundtrack by him.

Lisa Gerrard has worked with Hans Zimmer on a few occasions and as I've already mentioned has a beautiful voice. She's a prolific artist in her own right and I have a few of her albums in my collection.

I'm only familiar with Deniz Prigent from this particular song, but again he has a wonderful; voice so I should really check him out some more.

The Album


http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00005UWHH/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B00005UWHH&linkCode=as2&tag=phasespacenet-21
Click on image to purchase from Amazon

Black Hawk Down is one of my favourite modern war films, it's brutal and illustrates the contrast between how America wages war compared to the warlords in Somalia and similar opponents. The music helps with that contrast with its mix of western and Middle Eastern themes.

There's afew songs used in the film (a Faith No More track stands out) that aren't included which is a shame, but we're still left with an excellent selection of music that covers a range of moods.

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