Sound it Out - a film review

Sound it Out is a fabulous movie ostensibly about a record shop in the North-East town of Stockton-on-Tees. But is SOOOO much more than that.

If you get chance to see it then I would definitely recommend you go. There are so many reasons to love this film:

1. It's about music
2. It's about vinyl especially, and people's love for the physical objects of music transmission
3. It's NOT JUST about music but about people
4. It's about people who maybe don't quite fit what society sees as mainstream: in terms of their taste in music, or their obsession/addiction/passion for music (delete according to preference for disparaging human taste)
5. It's also about characters at the edges
6. It's about individuals whose back-history comes to the fore slowly, gradually, and shows you more than you at first thought
7. It's about interaction and isolation
8. It's about 'shy boys' (as the director Jeanie Finlay said at the Q&A, "I'm a heat-seeking missile for shy boys")
9. It's about places getting left behind in the rush of capitalism and consumption
10. It's about a specific place, specific people and specific music - and yet it is also so much more...

I just cannot praise it highly enough. Sound it Out is utterly hilarious - there are many great characters in the film - and yet also profoundly moving. The characters may make us laugh, but Finlay gets so close to these people from her home town community that they also open up to the camera in the most unexpected ways.

Although lots of the music discussed and featured in the film is 'hard' -- heavy metal, hard-core dance -- the soundtrack is very diverse and includes a number of tracks that are very much at odds with that harder rock sensibility.

Amongst the artistes I was especially pleased to hear were --- 'Allo Darling (Silver Dollars); Das Wanderlust (6 tracks - including the glorious Swan Song); Detective Instinct (Witches Birdies); Saint Saviour; and The Chapman Family.

Anyway, we had a great time on Friday seeing this at the Broadway cinema in Nottingham (where the film was edited - and I have to say it is beautifully edited). Recommended muchly.