I haven’t seen the movie Hallam Foe (or, as it’s known in the States, Mister Foe) and so unfortunately I can’t tell you how well the Hallam Foe album works as an actual soundtrack.  But I can tell you that as a showcase for Domino’s catalog, it works exceedingly well. Unlike most soundtracks it does have the pacing and dynamism of a good mix, and things are kept varied enough that it rewards repeat listens.

The only new song here is Franz Ferdinand’s atypically gentle and acoustic “Hallam Foe Dandelion Blow” (better than most of Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, in any case), with the other 15 tracks picked from Domino’s vaults by director David McKenzie. If nothing else, he has good taste. Clinic’s “If You Could Read Your Mind” was a grinding highlight of Visitations, and the selections from Orange Juice, Hood, Junior Boys and Juana Molina are all excellent. The level of quality is uniformly quite high, and most listeners will hear a band or two they’ll want to investigate further—maybe Psapp and the Bill Wells Trio, maybe Woodbine and King Creosote. The result is closer to a soundtrack like the one for the great Movern Callar than your standard film tie-in cash-grab, and a disc that’s well worth it for Domino fans (despite the lack of rarities) even if you haven’t seen the movie.