| Shoe String Symphonettes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Soundtrack album by | ||||
| Released | March 18, 1997 | |||
| Genre | Avant-garde jazz, experimental music | |||
| Length | 45:13 | |||
| Label | Tzadik | |||
| Producer | JD Foster | |||
| Marc Ribot chronology | ||||
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Shoe String Symphonettes is a 1997 album of film music by Marc Ribot released on Tzadik Records. [1]
The album contains soundtracks for five short films; the earliest being Landlord Blues directed by Jacob Burkardt (1987), followed by Death by Unnatural Causes directed by Karen Bellone and Lisa Rinzler (1991); one track for Summer Salt directed By Charles Levi (1993); Ribot's music for the silent film Aelita Queen of Mars directed by Yakov Protazanov (1928) was a mixture of live recordings from the 1995 Meltdown Festival mixed with backing tracks recorded in London and a live recording from The Knitting Factory; and Pieces from an Incomplete Project directed by Joe Brewster (1996).
Ribot stated "A lot of what I wrote was source music. In films, you write the score, but there’s also source music. For example, if a scene takes place in a disco and the filmmaker doesn’t want to shell out for rights to a disco hit, you write some disco. “Montuno” is a salsa tune. Jacob Burkhardt, the director, needed something that established a backyard on the Lower East Side. ... I gave it to the producer, J.D. Foster, to sequence, but I’m happy with the way he did it. I think it made the record as a whole more listenable. “Aelita” is pretty rough going; I chopped up the score into three suites. I don’t mind mixing things up in that way. It’s like making a salad, things rub off on each other". [2]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [3] |
Allmusic awarded the album 3 stars with reviewer Sean Cooper stating, "Symphonettes features some of Ribot's most compelling work to date, both creatively augmenting the originals and sketching out cinematic spaces more or less autonomous from the films they were inspired by". [3]
All compositions are by Marc Ribot except where noted.
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