Ennio Morricone - Once Upon A Time In The West / O.S.T.

After deconstructing the classic American Western by way of The Good, the Bad & the Ugly and A Fistful of Dollars, director Sergio Leone distilled his intentions with 1968's Once Upon a Time in the West, arguably a milestone for both Leone and his musical cohort, Ennio Morricone. For his part, Morricone framed Leone's meditative camera work and mythic narrative with a mix of hauntingly spacious pieces and reconfigured snatches of old-timey tunes. Just within the stretch of the first four pieces here, Morricone evokes the endless expanse of the West with a Copland-esque aria (the main title theme), weaves some twisted grit into the showdown theme with loads of guitar fuzz (As a Judgment), ingeniously combines whistling and a clippity-clop rhythm for a respite piece (Farewell to Cheyenne), and conjures the surreal end of the cowboy mythos via a wonderfully disjointed serial-style number (The Transgression). And whether sounding upbeat or stark, Morricone informs it all with the dry and windswept vacancy of the West. Beautiful and stunning.