The soundtrack of the week reviewed by JOCELYN CLARKE...

The Informant!

Silva Screen Records ****

After a hiatus of more than a decade, 60-something songwriter and composer Marvin Hamlisch's new score for Steven Soderbergh's satire on corporate America is an astonishing exercise in pastiche. The triple Oscar-winning composer ( The Sting, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Way We Were, A Chorus Line) combines lounge, jazz, blues and even other scores (notably Bond) to create a 1970s comedy score that sounds ersatz in its contemporary film setting, with brassy horns, rolling pianos, easy harmonicas and simmering strings. For all its jokey humour, Hamlisch's bright score is infused with dark colours and brooding tones to reveal a remarkable emotional complexity and dramatic tension underlying its satirical playfulness. Easily one of Hamlisch's best scores in decades, The Informant!is a masterwork of style and substance. www.silvascreen.co.uk

Download tracks: The Informant!, Sellout