Antonio Pinto & Ed Cortez: City of God soundtrack

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * *)

The movie — a brilliant "Gangs of Rio" epic set from the 1960s to 1980s — starts at cinemas today. On screen, its percussion-driven soundtrack music is a major generator of its crackling energy while charting the shift through the decades.

As an album, it makes for one very cool, very syncopated radio station that will have a stylish cafe-friendly life of its own away from the screen. It starts out in a sunstruck mix of samba and Brazilian folk-pop, with increasing excursions into Latin funk.

By the time it's reached the home stretch it's swapped tropical cool for something more menacing, ending on Batucada, a remix using snippets of the soundtrack composers' work and film dialogue which makes for one particularly fevered, paranoid dance track.

Label: WEA