Heaven's Door (Motion Picture Soundtrack)

The British electronica group Plaid — Ed Handley and Andy Turner — have kept a low profile in the latter half of the ’00s. Their score for the 2009 Japanese live-action drama, Heaven’s Door, is their first release since the soundtrack they did for the 2006 anime, Tekkonkinkreet. (Both movies were directed by American visual-effects veteran Michael Arias.) Heaven’s Door depicts two terminally ill young people who flee a hospital and go on a wild trip. Mellow and melancholy, “Masato Shuffle” places a sturdy rock beat next to Indian drumming as keyboards and guitar strums color the sonic spectrum, while the uptempo “Tokyo Drive” features nicely contrasting keyboard patterns riding a glitchy groove. On “Seeking,” a jazzy rhythm supports plinky and brassy melodic lines, and “Durban Pain” is animated by tabla and other percussion. For “Two Rooms,” Plaid leaves the beats behind. The cut opens with interlocking chime parts that evoke a crystalline dream world before it morphs into a spare keyboard-and-strings section that gently brings the album to a quiet crescendo.