Big BAD LOVE (Nonesuch/Warner) Rating: NNNN Rating: NNNN
When filmmaker Arliss Brown thought about assembling a soundtrack to accompany his directorial debut, Big Bad Love — based on the short stories of Mississippi author Larry Brown — the hypnotic grind of R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, T-Model Ford and Robert Belfour was a natural fit. So, while many people will seek out the Big Bad Love CD for the two amazing (and otherwise unavailable) Tom Waits tunes he recorded for the film, and others will grab it for the beguiling Tom Verlaine collaboration with Kronos Quartet, the Mississippi hill-country blues mystique is really the heart of the matter here. The music is probably a bit too unruly for Big Bad Love to be an O Brother of the blues, yet it’s doubtful there’ll be a more entrancing soundtrack released this year.