Continuing down his distinctly disappointing path of late, Mike Patton’s latest work will not reassure those that worry their favourite deranged auteur has gone staid. A soundtrack for the Italian film of the same name, based on a book by Paolo Giordano, The Solitude Of Prime Numbers is, like all film soundtracks, hugely annoying to review or listen to without having seen the film in question. Yet having given myself the task of reviewing his Mondo Cane album from last year, I feel obliged to cover his work now, and much of what I wrote about that could apply here also. This doesn’t have the depth and ease of repeated listens that your average Mr Bungle or Faith No More album has. This is a film soundtrack, pure and simple, and this isn’t Patton’s first. He also scored Crank: High Voltage, which I’ve seen and assume The Solitude Of Prime Numbers to be an altogether different genre, from the music here if nothing else!

Although quirky to an extent, the pieces here are soft, calm and suitably ambient, piano plonks and orchestral flourishes forming most of them. Some very strange ‘la-la-la’ing on the first and last pieces aside, it’s completely instrumental. Moments like the electronic crunches of Radius Of Convergence will find their fans, and the strums and ambience of Calculus Of Finite Differences is effective for what it is, but you would have to be a pretty rabid fanboy to listen to this more than once. And it’s only the most rabid of fanboys who will be buying this, in any case... Mike Patton’s talents are put to far better, more satisfying use in other projects, any of which I would recommend over this to those looking for a quick mix of their favourite musical mentalist. The man’s versality of talent is beyond question, but this doesn’t always translate to an enjoyable experience, as is sadly proved here.