** Limited LP edition, pressed on audiophile 140 GM transparent red vinyl ** Ryuichi Sakamoto’s approach to Pedro Almodóvar’s Tacones Lejanos original soundtrack, now highlighted in Quartet Records’ re-release, is characterized by restrained elegance, far from the sonic bombast tied to more commercial scores. Sakamoto, famously eclectic, here leans on glacial piano and synthesized gloom, crafting a sense of longing that rarely overwhelms the action itself—almost an anti-climax to the melodrama so central to Almodóvar’s cinema. The main theme, frequently cited by listeners as "gentle" and imbued with a faint Bachian echo, becomes "a sonic meditation" that recedes as often as it advances the narrative, providing a sonic counterpoint to the vocal performances of Luz Casal, whose renditions of "Piensa en mí" and "Un año de amor" provide the drama’s real overheated peaks.

Tacones Lejanos is not a Sakamoto score of showy gestures: rather, his music embeds itself into the film’s texture, respecting Almodóvar’s complex emotional palette while never competing with the already vibrant visuals. The soundtrack juxtaposes fleeting electronics, guitar filigree and subdued orchestrations—a subtle architecture where restraint is the rule. There is little of the caprice or ironic instrumental play of Sakamoto’s contemporaneous work; instead, a sense of stillness and symmetry that echoes the composer’s fascination for Tarkovsky and Bach, yet resists easy transcendence.

The Quartet Records edition preserves this fragile balance, offering audiophiles a rare chance to savor Sakamoto’s understated contribution alongside Casal’s iconic vocals. In a discography spanning from synth-pop deconstructions to modernist film symphonies, Tacones Lejanos stands as a quietly subversive artifact—a soundtrack that dares to be heard on the margins of drama, exquisitely aloof, never eager to please.