Brooklyn-based Darcy James Argue has been one of the most talked about young ensemble arrangers and leaders on the east coast over the past decade. The new CD Real Enemies takes up a pet theme of his (note the leader's band name too), the theme of conspiracy theories from post-war cold war McCarthyism through to today's destabilised political climate of corruption and mistrust. Musically the recording reflects something of the paranoia/psychological thriller soundtrack era of the 1970s and seems to draw from film music, especially a couple of superb works by David Shire – to my ears there's the eerie jazz minimalism of Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation and 12-tone score to The Taking of Pelham 123 in there somewhere. As well, there are echoes of Bernard Herrmann's Taxi Driver and Lalo Schifrin's Dirty Harry, while there's also a sound not unlike 1970s Blaxploitation movies with a hip hop angle. Add to this a few spoken word excerpts by JFK, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney among others and a concluding voice-over narration by actor James Urbaniak. But it all hangs together very well, even if the risk is that the album is too heavy-going as a whole. Yet Argue's integration of spookily minimalist textures from formal 20th century contemporary music with latin grooves and improvisational moments from his fine soloists creates a sinister ‘imaginary’ soundtrack resonating with a new era when it's become difficult to know who's really making the decisions.