The proggy tendencies of current underground hip hop have not gone unnoticed. As if to prove the point, here we have four long tracks in true Yes fashion featuring tempo changes extended instrumental sections and bucolic acoustic guitar loops. But in the place of Jon Anderson's shrill squeak, we have Paris-based Canadian MC, DJ and producer Buck 65's soothing, friendly voice in your ear.
After the steamy funk of Boogie Nights and the Aimee Mann tearjerkers of Magnolia, PT Anderson's new film basks in heady strings and wonky harmoniums, scored by regular collaborator Jon Brion. It's deliberately dizzying and disorientating, and not always pleasurable. But the borrowing of Nilsson's "He Needs Me" from Altman's Popeye, sung with sugary desire by Shelley Duvall, is inspired. Waiting to interview Anderson in a hotel lobby recently, I congratulated Emily Watson on her singing of this. It's the only thing I've ever said to Emily Watson.
