Godstar: Thee Director's Cut

OK, this is listed as a soundtrack and even filed in the soundtrack sections of some pretty cool records stores, like Virgin, so where, you might ask, is the movie? There isn't one — there was supposed to be one in 1986, but evidently financial chicanery and the sudden unwillingness of the surviving Rolling Stones to participate sabotaged what might've been an awkwardly candid (or slanted) biography of Brian Jones. So all that remains is the music, the bitter account of those events of nearly 20 years ago, and the music which is...quite beautiful and often stirring. The central theme is the "Godstar" tune, familiar from the song and utilized in various ways here. Otherwise, the main body of work is a space mix of echoey percussion, freakbeat choruses, and oddly roots instrumentation (including what sounds like a banjo), along with weird-ass adaptations of period pop songs (such as "Amazing Vibrations," the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" given the "Godstar"/Psychic TV treatment, to fascinating effect), and Mellotron-dominated instrumental passages such as "A Mind Blown Is a Mind Throne." There are lots of versions of "Godstar," and renditions of "Good Vibrations" and "Eve of Destruction" that are reasonably inventive, plus a mix of pop and instrumental music that evokes the era of the subject and of the proposed production. The sound throughout glitters and glistens, and there's more extensive annotation than one will find on almost any rock album.