Easy Street Records

Richard Thompson�s score for Grizzly Man � Werner Herzog�s 2005 documentary film of real life and death in the Alaskan wilderness � is one of the best-kept secrets in the British guitarist�s epic canon: an instrumental masterpiece disguised as a movie soundtrack. Recorded over two days as Thompson played live in the studio to Herzog�s footage � mostly alone, at times in chamber settings with cello, piano and percussion � these tenderly detailed melodies and quietly visceral improvisations are cinema in their own right, rendered with pictorial instinct and the dazzling technique forged in Thompson�s lifelong passage through traditional folk, psychedelia, North African modes and intensely personal songwriting. Here is Thompson at his natural best � finger-picking dance; snake-curl twang and singing-wire harmonics � in a solo clarity that runs from jig-like joy to deep-note meditation, the �Grizzly Man� blues march with its echoes of Fairport Convention�s �Sloth� to the long night of �Treadwell No More,� a harrowing darkness in slicing treble and tremolo shiver. Produced by guitarist Henry Kaiser, Grizzly Man is a record of powerful solitude � as bold and majestic as the land in Herzog�s film; as intimate as prayer � and essential Richard Thompson.