Having creatively captured the addled, animated thought process of mental illness that afflicted a Latvian family in “Rocks in My Pockets,” Italian composer Kristian Sensini hears the sinister, razor-sharp clarity of a Slovenian politician out to triumph at any cost in “All Against All” (KeyeStudioS). But it’s a dark desperation that translates in any language, particularly when given an atmospheric sound that plays to the strength of the composer’s strengths in classical music, piano and jazz – warping the two for a transfixingly sinister mood. With its percussion, electric guitar and winds, often punctuated with sharp electronics, Sensini’s mix of steely tension and wistfully ironic melody also brings to mind such paranoia-drenched 70’s scores as “The Conversation” and “The Parallax View,” as well as later conspiratorial soundtracks like “The Firm” as it conjures a world of backroom dealings, sordid sex and lethal opportunism. It’s music as fit for a tale about gangsters as it is politicians, who are most often one in the same when it comes to scoring them.
