pub: Sony Pictures Entertainment B002LH425Y. 11 track 30 minute CD. Price: $ 9.99 (US).

check out website: www.sonypictures.co.uk

'District 9' is a new film produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Neill Blomkamp based on the latter's short film, 'Alive In Joburg'. As I haven't seen either film, all I can go by is the blurb and what I think of the music. Essentially the plot is a bunch of stranded alien refugees in Johannesburg are segregated in District 9, not unlike District 6 which housed people in the 70s Apartheid regime.



The music is very much African blend to no doubt match the setting, allegory and alienation that separates people solely because they are different. No doubt setting it in South Africa is being used to show how much their society has changed or more likely, remained the same.

As a piece of orchestration, composer Clinton Shorter's soundtrack maintains a pace across the eleven tracks here that segues from one to the next that doesn't jar with the tone.

The music would not be out of place in a general genre film. It catches the rhythm African tone and the tracks relying more on drumbeat change the tempo of the music. What happens to the aliens in such a situation will no doubt be revealed in the film itself. The music is bold and attentive and an enjoyable half hour.

GF Willmetts