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Sunshine Cleaning [Soundtrack]

Original Soundtrack/Michael Penn
1 disc

1. Cure for This
2. Chalk Thing, The
3. Shrimp Truck
4. Bloody Bathroom
5. Joe and Oscar
6. Trestling
7. Perfect Days
8. To the East
9. Rose and Mac
10. Barcelona
11. Some Ice Cream
12. Nora Follows Lynn Shower
13. Mrs. Davis
14. Fanny Pack
15. Intro (Stay Here)
16. Fire
17. Winston's Store
18. Open for Business
19. Trailer Park
20. Arriving at Fire
21. CB Radio and Resolve
22. Spirit in the Sky
23. Introduction
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Additional Info

Manufacturer Part Number (MPN): 34071
Credits

Producer Michael Penn; Mike Baiardi
Engineer Ryan Freeland; Bruce MacFarlane
Personnel: Michael Penn (guitar, keyboards, percussion); Alyssa Park, Marisa Kuney, Amy Wickman, Marcy Vaj, Eric Gorfain, Alwyn Wright, Melissa Reiner (violin); Caroline Buckman, Leah Katz (viola); Mathew Cooker, Richard Dodd, John Krovoza (cello); Peter Nevin (clarinet); James King (saxophone); Jay Bellerose, Craig MacIntyre (drums, percussion).
Recording information: Mimeograph Studio; The Pass.
Although Michael Penn has some film scores on his rsum (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, The Anniversary Party, American Teen, The Last Kiss), he remains better known as a folk/rock/pop singer/songwriter, and it's easy to see why on the basis of his music for Sunshine Cleaning, a quirky drama/comedy about two sisters who start a business cleaning up crime scenes. Penn has employed a small string section and the occasional horn to flesh out his cues, but the basic instrumentation is well within the folk/pop/rock mode, and the tracks for the most part simply sound like demos for his next singer/songwriter record, albeit ones he hasn't yet finished with fully fledged song structures, melodies, and lyrics. An uncredited voice that no doubt is the composer can even be heard wordlessly humming and singing "na-na-na" and "doot-doot-doot" here and there as apparent preparation for the words and tunes to come. It is disconcerting, then, that this music is interspersed with actual pop/rock songs performed by others, including Golden Smog and Electrelane, since they seem to be the completed performances that Penn's tracks are on their way to becoming. Presumably, this works to the satisfaction of the director to accompany her film, but to a mere listener to the soundtrack album, the music for Sunshine Cleaning comes off as incomplete. ~ William Ruhlmann