Pitchfork

A lot of various artist soundtrack albums featuring music "from and inspired by" a motion picture are really just cash grabs, full of cast-off tracks from artists who could spare them, often from a label owned by the same company that owns the studio that made the movie. The soundtrack for The Trials of Darryl Hunt is different. Sure, it features almost entirely tracks that weren't in the documentary, and it's a hodgepodge of new tracks, live performances, and even an album track or two, but it's also a benefit compilation for the Darryl Hunt Foundation, which works for wrongfully convicted prisoners.

The motivation for putting it out doesn't change the quality of the music, of course, but everyone involved is to be commended for contributing to the cause. Quickly, Hunt, a young black man, was arrested under, at best, dubious circumstances for the rape and murder of a young newspaper copy editor in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and subsequently convicted by an all-white jury in spite an overwhelming lack of compelling evidence against him. There was a simple reason there was no good evidenced-Hunt was completely innocent. That didn't keep him from being re-convicted after his original conviction was overturned, though, nor did it secure him a speedy release from prison after his second conviction. Even evidence directly contrary to the state's case against him was ignored.

Hunt's case became a cause celebre for people fighting against flaws in our justice system, and in his own community, served as evidence that attitudes among authorities in North Carolina had changed little since segregation. Stories like Hunt's are not nearly as uncommon as we might think or like to hope, and the film does an excellent job of showing just how senseless and avoidable his 20-year ordeal was.

It's not surprising that the four new hip-hop tracks-- the only tracks by black musicians on the disc-- are the most outraged here. Each one directly takes on racism and corruption with fluid eloquence, and as such they're the most bracing songs on the soundtrack, though the indie rock that surrounds them is mostly fine on its own. Ras Kass blazes away at institutionalized racism and public indifference on "Guilty Until Proven Innocent", mentioning Hunt by name, and spitting furious line like "You know what it takes/ To not hate police?" in his trademark syncopated flow.

Dead Prez's Sticman interpolates his rap comparing American justice to a shell game on "The Hunt Is On" with a lullaby that features the decidedly un-lullaby-like line "the hunt is always on for us." G-Unit's Spider Loc offers up a prison narrative brimming with details of life behind bars on "Behind Bars", shying away from direct attacks on the police and courts. The guys who have been at it longest, the Last Poets, team up with Dälek for the darkest of the four tracks. The Last Poets pre-date hip-hop as a true genre, and their sense of vocal rhythm is exciting and different from just about anything else. The lyrics take a broader perspective on the black condition, addressing institutional problems alongside intracommunity ones with virtuosic poetry like this: "Even the depth in their faces does not seem to belong to them/ It seems borrowed/ On loan/ Consigned!/ To them by too many Blood and Crip fantasies dripping in dead tributes/ Dedicated to the eagerness of self-destruction."

Exclusive tracks from Portastatic and Califone have less to do with the film, but are nonetheless excellent songs their fans will want to hear. Mark Kozelek's solo rendition of the Red House Painters' "Have You Forgotten" is haunting and beautiful, and Andrew Bird's similarly spare violin-and-voice performance of "Happy Day" positively soars. Other contributions are more puzzling or just plain unwelcome. Starsailor's "Good Souls" was boring enough without stripping it down to a bare acoustic arrangement, while Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's "Yankee Go Home" just sounds garish next to everything else here.

Three pieces of music on the disc actually do come from the film-Paul Brill's score is by turns droning and desolate, then feverishly animated, emotional sketches made mostly of electronic sound. "Prison Theme" is the most memorable, a forbidding descent into hell that puts the drums as high in the mix as everything else. Brill also contributes a lovely song called "Powerlines", an electro-acoustic meditation that sounds a bit like the ghost of Grandaddy. It's not cohesive, and it has a few forgettable songs on it, but The Trials of Darryl Hunt is ultimately a worthy disc assembled for a worthwhile cause.