While you get the feeling he's happy enough to keep it that way, the fact PAUL HAIG remains firmly entrenched within a cobwebbed cult corner seems little short of ludicrous such is the stength and depth of his meandering solo career in the (gasp!) two decades since the heady days of his influential group Josef K.
During 2003, the good people at LTM brought us two of Haig's prime, song-based albums (re-issued with extra tracks) in "The Warp Of Pure Fun" and "Coincidence Vs.Fate", but with "Cinematique", Haig proves he's equally adept at scoring soundtracks, and - while the three song cycles making up the album are for purely imaginary films - these tracks simply cry out for the visual accompaniment of the most atmosphere-drenched screenplays available.
That said, it's a credit to Haig's craft that virtually everything here merits attention purely sonically, and that "Cinematique" also works beautifully as an aural operation. Sure, you sometimes miss Haig's wonderfully dry vocal delivery and his barbed, but wry lyrical observations, but he plays all the instruments and you truly have to take your hat off to what he achieves musically here.
The first of the three song cycles is entitled "City Of Fun" and recalls the classic celluloid adventures scored by soundtrack heroes such as John Barry and Roy Budd, with maybe a hint of Lalo Schfrin wafting through in places. Indeed, the opening "Black Veil & Gold" is a wonderful, Noir-infused piece writ large, while the shadowy "City Of Fun" itself is almost the equal of Barry's "Ipcress File" theme; "Somewhere Inbetween" could virtually be an update of Monty Norman's "OO7 Theme" and "The Hunting Party" could be from Budd's "Get Carter" OST, with harpsichords, early analogue synths and expressive, heartbeat percussion playing gloriously off each other.
Such fare will always be dear to this writer's heart, so it's no great surprise that the "City Of Fun" cycle is your reviewer's favourite section of the album, but that's not to denigrate either the "Lagondola" or "Flashback" cycles, which are equally evocative and successful in their own right.
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The "Lagondola" suite is an effective change of tempo and a rich, neo-classical ambient landscape with mournfully beautiful piano pieces segueing gloriously. "Beauty" and "Highland", for instance, recall the stark, rippling sadness of former Talk Talk leader Mark Hollis's solo work, while "Deception" has a lightness of touch and plucked strings reminiscent of Vini Reilly.
It's a glacial beauty of a suite, but doesn't usurp the descriptive electronica of the final "Flashback" suite, which is more the kind of thing you might find accomanying John Carpenter or Ridley Scott's films. The final two tracks, "In-Flight Entertainment" and "Oil" are especially noteworthy, actually, with the former allying squelchy synths with an almost "Blade Runner"- type of feel and the latter coming across as nearly a derivative of Magazine's "The Thin Air" from their equally under-rated "Secondhand Daylight" album.
"Cinematique", then, is never less than gripping and thought-provoking and - at its' best - it rivals Haig's work on his more traditional song-based albums. Encouragingly, Haig has since released two further volumes of "Cinematique" (which we hope to revisit at some stage, too), plus an excellent retrospective collection with the late firebrand Billy McKenzie, of Associates fame. All should be sought out, but "Cinematique" itself is definitely the premiere you ought to attend before all others. Intoxicating stuff.
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