Womb Raider

Womb Raider is a soundtrack for one of those soft-core, lesbian flicks that you used to dream about staying up late to watch on Cinemax. Cara Loft must travel the world to exotic locales seeking the three wombs of creation. This setup gives do-it-all Randolph Scott (director, writer, actor, producer, editor, and composer for the film) an excuse to fill his electronic score with cues from Arabia, Africa, and Tibet.

The good: while technically a porn film (albeit soft-core) the score lacks the cheesy porn clichés you may have been expecting. It is a surprisingly competent, if disjointed, collection of electronica. It is not, however, going to be showing up on Pitchfork\'s Best Of list anytime soon. It doesn\'t feel like there is much in the way of overarching theme tying these 33 tracks together. (78:07 of music...was there any silence in the film?) The musical cues of Arabia, Africa, and Tibet feel a bit perfunctory. The constant use of electronica forms an uneasy backing to scenes as diverse as "Harem Dance", "Into the Jungle", "Final Battle", and "Bodhisvattva (Deep Devotion Mix)". After a few tracks you begin to lose the ability to distinguish between them. Even the greatest of composers would be challenged trying to come up with 33 distinct themes. The lack of aural diversity wears you down after 78 minutes.

There are a few tracks that stand out, not always for the right reasons. These are, I\'m guessing, because the soundtrack is trying to support a movie that has no coherent plot (I mean, even less of a plot than the Angelina Jolie version and that takes some doing) and plenty of gratuitous soft-core lesbian scenes. It must be difficult to make a soundtrack to all that which doesn\'t end up sounding schizophrenic. The first of these shocks comes with track number two, "I\'ll Be Waiting". After the main title march primes us to expect an action packed feast of world travel we\'re suddenly dropped into a slow paced 3:36 track that is more Dido than Indiana Jones. Another strange entry is "Different from the Rest (Acoustic Version)" which comes right after the inexplicably bizarrely titled "Love Me, Hold Me (Warrior Remix)" (!!) and its strong techno beat. "Different from the Rest" escapes briefly from the techno overtones of the rest of the soundtrack to present meandering moanings over the kind of simple guitar and drums pairing you\'d expect from the local cafe\'s resident folk band. I am trying to imagine what is happening onscreen to explain this track\'s placement between the techno of "Love Me, Hold Me" and the triumphalism of "Second Womb Idol". My imagination is not up to the task.

The soundtrack to Womb Raider isn\'t terrible but I can\'t imagine the movie has so many devoted fans that they\'ll be flocking to stores to snap this one up. And if you haven\'t seen the movie it is unlikely you\'ll have the emotional attachment to drive the music from the merely mediocre into the "oh my god I\'ve gotta have that" category.