Over the last few years the film score has become very important to me. It was always there, even from a little kid getting goosebumps thanks to John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Danny Elfman, and Ennio Morricone, the film score was making its mark on me whether I realized it or not. But just within the last few years I’ve started going back to old horror soundtracks and then new ones and saw such a vast and overwhelmingly beautiful musical world where I could get lost in. Whether it was a progressive rock band, a guy with a synthesizer, or a full orchestra, these composers and musicians not only made the film they were scoring that much better but many stand on their own as impeccable musical art that begs to be played both in context and out of context of the films they were made for.
Not only has it been a great year of music from some of my favorite artists and bands, it’s been a pretty stellar year for film scores and soundtracks. Two of my favorites in a really long time came out this year(well, I bought them this year anyways.) So some of these may not have been released in 2017, but they did come into my possession in 2017. Whether they be reissues or I just happened to stumble upon them finally, these are soundtracks that came into my life this year and I’m very thankful for that.
10. The Void by Jeremy Gillespie and Brian Wiacek and Various Artists
I think Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie’s The Void was one of the biggest horror film surprises for me this year. It was a low budget, mostly practical effects-filled occult-heavy hard doom flick that in all regards shouldn’t have worked but it did. It did because these guys were pulling from the likes of Clive Barker, HP Lovecraft, John Carpenter, and even Ridley Scott(definitely some Alien love here.) They hit the mood just right, both stylistically, visually, and aurally. The sound design was perfect and the NIN-meets-Ennio Morricone-meets-John Cage soundtrack was a huge part in giving this little, freaky horror film the push it needed into future cult classic territory.
9. Suspiria by Goblin
I know, I know, why didn’t I own this already? It’s an absolute stone cold classic, right? It’s the score to Dario Argento’s masterpiece, right? It’s fucking Goblin, right? Well, while I am quite aware of how great this album is(as well as the film, ya dingus) I never got around to picking up a copy. I’d see OG pressings here and there but never dropped the cash for one or for any of the reissues. Then Death Waltz/Mondo announced they were putting out a reissue at Beyond Fest. I was sweating and panting as I looked at its majestic beauty online. Of course I wasn’t going to be at Beyond Fest so I missed out. But alas, they were selling a limited amount on their webstore so not all hope was lost. Then the goddamn thing sold in like a minute. Good for Mondo, not so good for Johnny Midwest(that’s me.) Fear not, readers. Mondo threw a couple in LIght In The Attic’s direction and I was able to get a copy thanks to my local brick and mortar. I spun it twice last night and it was amazing. And look at that album art by Randy Ortiz. Absolutely amazing.
8. The Thing by Ennio Morricone
I have to admit that the score to John Carpenter’s The Thing was the last thing I noticed about it. This movie scarred me when I saw it as a kid. The kennel scene still burns brightly in my cerebral cortex as one of the most disturbing childhood movie memories(besides Leonard Part 6 of course.) Going back to The Thing as an adult I’m still enthralled with the effects and the Agatha Christie via Sergio Leone via Invasion of the Body Snatchers cinema gumbo Carpenter offered up, but Morricone’s score is a new highlight for me. There’s so much nuance and quiet dread in there that never made its mark before when I was still a pre-teen. Thanks to Waxwork Records I was able to snag a copy of their reissue, complete with absolutely stunning artwork by Justin Erickson of Phantom City Creative. It’s such an underrated masterpiece.
7. Christine by John Carpenter
Another Carpenter classic that far exceeded Stephen King’s source material, this film oozed Carpenter’s stylized camera work and dread-filled synth work. The movie was a fun 80s gem and Keith Gordon’s scene-chewing performance was worth the price of admission alone. I hadn’t really thought much about the movie for quite a few years, until this year when it was announced Varese Sarabande was reissuing the soundtrack. Of course I picked it up on blue-colored vinyl and was immediately taken aback by just how good it was. It sort of feels like an outlier in the Carpenter/Howarth canon. It’s more subtle and quiet than previous work. It sounds darker and more minimalistic than what came before(and after, really.) When I put it on this year I was instantly reminded of the more recent work of Zombi’s Steve Moore. His The Guest S/T owes a big debt to Christine. At least that’s what my ears hear.
6. Before The Flood by Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Mogwai, and Gustavo Santaolalla
A soundtrack to a documentary that I really should watch but I just haven’t gotten to it yet. Still, I knew I’d want it with the Reznor/Ross team and Mogwai both contributing. It’s a 3LP set worth of compositions and incidental music for the Leonard DiCaprio-produced doc about climate change. It was directed by actor Fisher Stevens and the score is subtle but moving. Everyone here works well together to make a well-blended collection of pieces that I’m sure help push the narrative along quite nicely in the film. I can say it’s a great listen. Despite the length, it runs along nicely and it holds up to Mogwai and the Reznor/Ross team’s best.
5. Mayhem by Steve Moore
Steve Moore continues to push his film scoring work to bigger heights. His score to 2015s The Mind’s Eye was an impeccable collection of moody synth and this year’s Mayhem is no different. Well, actually it is. Moore has pushed his film music into newer territory with Mayhem, bringing in 80s techno rhythms at times and pushed into more of a pop-centric vibe. It works incredibly well, and I think establishes Moore as one the premier indie film composers working today.
4. Hyper Light Drifter by Disasterpeace
Hyper Light Drifter is a soundtrack to a video game I’ve never played, but that’s okay. You know why? Because the masterful score by Disasterpeace is really all I need. It’s a 4LP behemoth and it’s a sensory overload in the vein of his excellent work on Fez. He works within the realm of chiptune which adds both a child-like wonder and overwhelming nostalgia to everything he does. With the sound of early 80s all over this, you feel like your back in the neon decade watching Saturday morning cartoons and playing on your Commodore 64. But Rich Vreeland isn’t just some nostalgia guy. The work he creates is very serious and can evoke emotions just like someone working with the full symphony. Hyper Light Drifter might just be his masterpiece.
3. Blade Runner 2049 by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch
I know I’ll get a lot of flack for saying this, but I was a hell of a lot more hyped about seeing Denis Villeneuve and Roger Deakins'(his cinematography was as integral as the direction) Blade Runner 2049 than I was Rian Johnson’s Star Wars : The Last Jedi this year. Maybe it was the 37 years in-between, the mystique of the project, or the stellar group involved in bringing that world back to life, but the idea of heading back to that dystopic future seemed like a fitting way to close out 2017(after seeing the newest trailers for The Last Jedi I’m officially at peak hype level now.)
Besides the actors, writers, director, and DP, I was extremely thrilled to hear that Villeneuve also had his composing collaborator Johann Johannsson signed on to score the film. As October got closer and closer the story had changed a bit. It was reported Johannsson was going to share scoring duties with heavyweight Hans Zimmer. While I wasn’t too disappointed, I had hoped Zimmer was going to leave his over-the-top style from the Nolan, Miller, and Snyder films at the studio door, in lieu of something a little darker and more restrained.
Well by now you know that Johannsson was completely off the project by the end of it all and Zimmer took the reigns, with help from Benjamin Wallfisch. What started out as disappointing news and a general bummer turned 180 degrees once I heard the score for the first time. Zimmer and Wallfisch created a moody, melancholy, and spatial musical world for Officer K, Deckard, and Luv to come alive in. There are no huge blasts of over-the-top drama. Hans Zimmer pays tribute lovingly to Vangelis’ original and perfect score while still adding a more modern, darker feel. A post-modern dystopian symphony to get lost in.
2. The Girl With All The Gifts by Cristobal Tapia De Veer
Another cinematic treat this year was The Girl With All The Gifts. A different take on the virus apocalypse that was part 28 Days Later and part road movie, but with a precocious teen at the center. Besides the unique take on a well used story, the score by Cristobal Tapia De Veer was an absolute brilliant outing. Part electronic, part voice, but all so one of a kind. There’s something very alien about the use of voice and rhythm throughout, giving the whole thing a very ghostly feel. Part Mica Levi and part OPN, but very much its own beast. An absolute gem.
And now, my favorite score of the year:
Arrival by Johann Johannsson
Arrival is one of a handful of recent science fiction films that I think have retooled the genre and have breathed new life into the science fiction world. It wasn’t concerned with reeling in teenagers or people that need things spelled out for them. It took adult themes, complex storylines, and incredible visuals and created a truly emotional, thought-provoking film. So much of that was pushed forward by Johann Johannsson’s thoughtful and intricate score. He uses an orchestra like one may use a synthesizer. It’s not a conventional score, but it’s filled with so many eerie dynamics that you can’t help but get pulled into the world it makes. It’s like Steve Reich wrote a symphony for whales, with it to be played underwater. It’s mysterious, spatial, and at so many points absolutely beautiful. This is easily one of the most compelling film scores I’ve heard in years.
Last night as I played this for the umpteenth time my son says to me “This part in the movie I cried. It was so sad.” He was referring to the end where Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight” played. If you’re familiar with the film and scene you’ll understand my son’s reaction to the piece and the scene. I cried, too. Richter’s piece plays like bookends for Johannsson’s overall score. They both work together flawlessly, which is why this is my absolute favorite score of the year(at least within the year I bought it, that is.)
There were lots of great soundtracks that I picked up this year. Here’s a few others you should check out if you haven’t(especially that Hellraiser. Damn):
Hellraiser by Christopher Young(reissue)
Southbound by The Gifted
Atomic Blonde by Various Artists
Baby Driver by Various Artists
Watchdogs by Brian Reitzell
Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me by Angelo Badalamenti
You’re Next by Various Artists
The Streets Run Red by Timothy Fife and David Ellesmere
Forbidden World by Susan Justin
So the big lists are out of the way. I’ve still got a couple end of year posts I’m going to share. Keep checking back. And go pick up some albums, guys and gals!
Denmark’s Causa Sui are like this wellspring of individual talent that somehow through a higher power came together and make amazing, mind-altering albums. Return To Sky is their most pared down, honed-in record to date with 5 songs that range from riff-heavy grooves to dreamy soundscapes. When I spoke to Jonas Munk earlier in the year, he said of Return To Sky, “One thing we all agreed on this time was that this should be a shorter ride.” It may be shorter, but it’s in no way lesser in the Causa Sui canon. “Dust Meridian”, “Mondo Buzzo”, “The Source”, “Dawn Passage” and “Return To Sky” sound like free form jams, but there’s a continuity to them that allow the songs to flow beautifully.
Jack Tatum’s Wild Nothing has been a favorite of mine since the beautiful Nocturne back in 2012. I also quite dug his Empty Estate EP from 2013. It was weird and a little all over the place. It showed that Tatum was the kind of musician that had quite a few tricks up his sleeve and didn’t want to be pigeonholed as just a purveyor of dream-y, shoe-y, gaze-y pop. Life Of Pause is the proper follow-up to Nocturne and it shows a guy busting his head open and dumping its contents onto tape(or hard drive). Pop excursions, post-punk bounciness, and even elements of art rock come to the surface. The album opens with the exquisite “Reichpop”, an ode to avante classical composer Steve Reich and from there anything goes. Elsewhere, “A Woman’s Wisdom” has the feel of a classic 80s radio hit and “Japanese Alice” pulls off some serious Wire vibes. “TV Queen” is grandiose melodrama with hints of Saga and Tatum’s own Nocturne.
Jakob Skott has become a new favorite of mine in the last two years. His records as front man(away from his drumming duties in Causa Sui) have become these worlds themselves. Wavy synths blip and bleep as Skott builds these massive drums around the analog language he makes with his synthesizers. This year’s All The Colours Of The Dust is this groovy masterpiece where man and machine collide and create noisy tropical grooves. “Age Of Isotopes” is 12 minutes of Bitches Brew-like noise and neo-futuristic computer funk. This is interstellar mind melting right here. “The Variable” is a great balance of soaring melody and jazz fusion drum excursions that in my mind didn’t exist until Skott created it two years ago on Amor Fati.
To my ears Ryan McRyhew, aka Thug Entrancer, is taking electronic music to a new level. Sure, an album like Arcology falls under categories like house, techno, and EDM, but he’s curating worlds, ideas, and emotions within the grooves and rhythms. I picked up his album Death After Life last year and I thought it was a brilliant piece of electronic music. Arcology is a masterful follow up that has a narrative to follow. McRyhew pieces together an album through a patchwork of flawless production and engaging songs. “Curaga/Low-Life” is uplifting and bright in a chromed-out kind of way, while “Ronin” sweeps you up in its urgency. “Bronze” makes you feel like your falling through space, all the while still retaining the house/techno groove.
Victims is a collaboration between film composer Timothy Fife and Video Nasties’ member Chris Livengood. It’s an album that came from out of nowhere and pretty much blew my mind. It’s two tracks laid out on a 10″ that I wish would never end every time I listen to it. A heady mixture of primo-era Tangerine Dream(think Phaedra and Rubycon as told through the imagination of two guys brought up on sleazy 80s horror.) Fife and Livengood aren’t a couple of hacks pretending to be a couple German synth Gods from the 70s and Walter Rizatti. No, they’ve got chops all their own and use them fully on this mini-LP. “Profecy” wavers and slithers like some new age serpent swallowing up your bad karma. Then “Cleonova” gets sickly sleazy in the best way possible. The synths are so thick and gooey you’d need a hot knife to cut through them. It sounds like a cross between the intro to some grimy Betamax copy of a Gorgon video release and the score to some long forgotten Abel Ferrara flick. There’s still plenty of space exploration to be had to this one as well.
Speaking of Betamax sleaze, Videodrones is a musical project dedicated to those late night flicks you’d watch when mom and dad went to bed. Those seedy backroom rentals(no, not those backrooms) that you weren’t sure if you should watch them or not. But someone gave you a list of “Video Nasties” and a bunch of those movies are there on the back wall to rent. So why not?
Explosions In The Sky didn’t exactly rebuild their sound from the ground up, but after 2011s Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, the Texas band took a break from their wide-eyed, cinemascope song composing and scored a couple indie flicks. On their return to album making they’ve found a more direct sound. The Wilderness is more glitchy, electronic, and harsher in sound, but beautiful nonetheless.
Preoccupations self-titled debut pulls you in at the very beginning and doesn’t let you go until the last song ends. It’s exhilarating and unapologetic in its darkness, but they somehow find a way to make anxiety into something uplifting. They took a year of bad juju and documented it in the Canadian wilderness and gave the results to us.
So yes, without Netflix’ Stranger Things this record wouldn’t even be on this list. In fact, I’d probably still have no idea who the hell SURVIVE is. After devouring that entire show in two days I’d fallen deeply in love with the show’s score(and Winona Ryder of course…again.) My son even looked at me after we started up episode 5 or 6 and said “Too bad this soundtrack isn’t on vinyl.” Of course that soundtrack is on vinyl now(I own both volumes, natch.) Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein did an amazing job cobbling together this synth heavy score for the Duffer Bros Netflix hit, and thanks to the exposure the show gave these two they put out their band’s new album RR7349 with a new army of fans waiting to lap it up like kitties to a bowl of milk.
From the space-y, epic, and nearly 9 minute opener “Mothers Of The Sun” to the punky and fist pumping “Florian Saucer Attack” and the majestic pop beauty of “Crucify Me”, IV pretty much has it all. I don’t think anyone put out a rock and roll record nearly as good as this album this year, or last year for that matter. The thing about Black Mountain is that while they may wear their influences proudly on their sleeves they never imitate. They run those prog, punk, and classic rock influences through the Black Mountain machine and it comes out the other end completely and wholly it’s own thing. It took me a few years to completely embrace these Canadian rock and roll philistines. In fact, it took completely falling for Jeremy Schmidt’s Sinoia Caves back in 2014 to go back to revisit Black Mountain. Once I did it was all over. IV shows a band that has the juice to keep going for years. “Space to Bakersfield, are you listening?” I don’t know if Bakersfield is listening guys, but I sure am.
You know, I’m not sure I have an answer for that. So what gives? I don’t quite know what gives. I mean, I heard the exquisite “Burn The Witch” at the beginning of summer and felt I’d heard what was sure to be the beginnings of the next great Radiohead album. Greenwood’s string arrangements, Thom’s dark and foreboding vocals and lyrics, and of course the rest of the Radiohead crew doing their thing made this song feel like a grand musical announcment. “A low flying panic attack” embedded into my brain is the tag line of the summer. Then they released “Daydreaming” and that crushed me. Such a beautiful, lamenting song. Yorke hasn’t sounded that grounded and vulnerable in a song for years. The Paul Thomas Anderson-directed video was an existential trip as Thom walked through a succession of doors that, to me at least, represented points in ones life and where we come and go, arrive and leave, and eventually curl up and crawl back into the primordial ooze at the end of it all(I could be wrong, though.) Hell, even their unused Bond theme “Spectre” was absolutely brilliant. Very George Martin, “Live And Let Die”-esque, if you ask me. Then, on some random summer Sunday I downloaded the album as soon as it was available and listened to it three times in a row.
“Burn The Witch”, “Daydreaming”, “Deck’s Dark”, “Desert Island Disk”, “Ful Stop”, “Present Tense”, “Identikit”, and “True Love Waits” are some of the best songs Radiohead have written and put to tape, and yet I didn’t even include them on my list. Why? I guess the easiest answer is that I just stopped listening to it and it sort of fell through the cracks. There was that thing with the first vinyl copy I received sounding like absolute shit. I know, that shouldn’t have ruined me of the album as a whole, but dammit we’re not talking about some indie band using beer money to get some records pressed at a questionable pressing plant in Peoria, Illinois. We’re talking about fucking Radiohead. XL Recordings, Nigel Godrich, and one of the biggest and most powerful bands in the world and they send me a shit pressing of their new album? Yeah, I guess that sort of soured me of this exquisitely delicate record that I’d been anticipating and pining for since February of 2011 when King Of Limbs arrived in a surprise blur of electronic weirdness.
I feel like A Moon Shaped Pool is the most similar to an album like In Rainbows. Rainbows captured that great rock and roll(“Bodysnatchers”, “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”, “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”) band that we all fell for in the mid-90s, but it also showed them advancing the rock approach with ghostly nuance and this almost crystalline perfection(“Faust Arp”, “Nude”, “House of Cards”.) I felt it was the best Radiohead album since OK Computer(no disrespect to the Kid A and Amnesiac fanatics.) But now with A Moon Shaped Pool the band has come full circle. It’s this intimate and dark record that despite it’s dense sonics and meticulously engineered sound is probably the most earthbound and human piece of art Radiohead have given us.
Musically Johnny Greenwood is taking his musical worlds of film scoring and Radiohead and putting them together beautifully for the first time as well. His string arrangements and orchestral arranging here are on par with the best. Radiohead have always been a band that felt orchestral, with layers of electronics and synths creating this wall of sound on their albums over the years. Greenwood has put his orchestral leanings to good use on A Moon Shaped Pool. Tracks like “Burn The Witch”, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief”, and “The Numbers” are ornamented beautifully by Greenwood’s arrangements.
Kevin Barnes marches to the beat of a different drummer. This time around the drummer is probably a drum machine as Barnes takes Of Montreal into the world of electronica with Innocence Reaches. Not as engaging as his last two albums by a long shot, but I still found some bits to love.
A Mondotees/Death Waltz Originals release from earlier in the year, this one touts itself as a soundtrack to some lost 80s cult horror film entitled Who’s Out There? It’s not really a soundtrack to anything except the imagination of its creator, a London-based producer/musician who remains solely in the shadows. If you can snag a copy from somewhere in the ether I highly recommend it. It’s creepy, dark synth fun.
Matt Hill as Umberto makes sickly synth music that sounds like the score to some heavily redacted Italian horror film from the late 70s. Dark, gothic synth. On his newest record Alienation he takes the sound out of the seedy theater and into the Italian disco. It’s a more dance-y affair, with odes to Depeche Mode and New Order. Still, there’s plenty of sickly sweet synth to love.
I’ll never fault an artist for trying too hard, or having more ambition than vision. It takes a lot to put yourself out there so openly. Is The Is Are is Zachary Cole Smith in the throes of artistic overload. It’s an ambitious record that is top heavy and as you dig through the hour plus double LP you start to get a little tired. Had this record been cut down into a lean 40-45 minute album it would’ve been an outstanding record. As it stands, it’s still a damn good mess.
What happens when you take a set of twins from The National and the main guy behind Beirut and put them into a band together? Well LNZNDRF, that’s what. It’s not what you’d expect from all involved, and that’s a good thing. It has more in common with NEU! than The National, Kraftwerk than Beirut. Dreamy guitars, driving bass, and motorik beats dominate on this surprise LP.
Damien Jurado’s last two records were epic pieces of musical genius. Spiritual journeys soundtracked by music that was part Crazy Horse, Santana, and not of this earth. With Visions of Us on the Land the sound got a little more 16mm and less Cinemascope. The result is another solid record that feels longer than it needs to be. But still, Jurado is one of the best songwriters of his generation.
The maestro follows up 2015s Lost Themes with a sequel titled Lost Themes II in 2016 and it’s another solid collection of synth rock. Whether it’s as engaging as his classic movie work is up to the listener to decide, but the fact that John Carpenter is making things makes me a happy person.
White Denim’s earlier records were almost too technical and showy for their own good. There were hints of the band they’d become, but it almost felt like babysitting your nephew with ADHD. As with their last record Corsicana Lemonade, these Texans have honed in that energy and have learned to control it, giving Stiff their best collection of songs yet. They’ve found that balance between technical skill and from-the-gut groove. Stiff is the loosest record yet.
Chris Cohen comes across as a pretty down beat guy. His vocals are sweet and sleepy and musically he’s a cross between jazzy and lo-fi. It’s like the Vince Guaraldi Trio and Real Estate bonded over some early Kevin Parker demos. There’s a constant feeling of melancholy in his songs, but you never feel bummed. I can’t say the same for Chris, though. As If Apart is a masterful, stoned, bummer record that feels like the calm after you realize there’s nothing you can do to save the relationship.
Had you told me in the summer of 1991 that Les Claypool would eventually make a psychedelic album with Sean Ono Lennon I’d a told you that you were out of your mind. The same guy that sang songs called “John The Fisherman”, “Too Many Puppies”, “Tommy The Cat”, and “Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers” making an album with the son of John and Yoko Lennon? No way! Had you told me that the album called Monolith of Phobos would not only exist but be damn good, I’d a said you’re nuts. Well, I would’ve been wrong. It does exist and it’s damn good.
Landing’s Third Sight is a complex patchwork of woozy, trippy ambient music and heady psych. Lots of synth, looped guitar lines, and vocals that bring to mind My Bloody Valentine and Lush, the record is the band’s debut with Danish record label El Paraiso Records. They’ve already released another album called Complekt, so Landing doesn’t mess around. If you like your music on the atmospheric side of things, then Landing is your thing.
Dance music has never really been my thing. Mainly because I don’t dance, or shake my booty, or get down with my bad self. Having said that, MSTRKRFT make dance music that makes me want to be a better booty shaker. Their music is equal parts techno, industrial, and punk. On their new album Operator they’ve broken out the old school analog synths and get down and dirty. It’s a glorious thing.
I never thought the day would come when a Wilco record would end up anywhere below the top five of one of my year-end lists, but here we are. It’s not a bad album at all, but it just didn’t connect with me like past albums(or a good portion of what came out this year.) Still, Schmilco shows a band not willing to settle in to a sound. They’re still doing what they want to do despite what “fans” would like to hear. I gotta respect that.
Ashley Bellouin’s Ballads is a mix of avante garde composition and dreamy soundscapes. It’s drone-y and art-y, but it takes you on a journey. It’s like an expressionist painting that you stare at and wait for it to tell you something. In just a single, wavering tone it tells you so much.
This nearly made my top ten but got beat out by some Danish dudes, but that doesn’t lessen the greatness of this record. Pretty Years is the best Cymbals Eat Guitars album yet, mixing the dreamy guitar sounds of earlier records with a keen pop sensibility. Where previous albums may have gone too far one way or another, Pretty Years found the perfect balance. The results are a mix of both disenchantment with formative years spent in suburbia and a longing to go back to simpler times. Joseph D’Agostino proves to be one of the best songwriters we’ve got right now.
Fight Club hasn’t aged all that well with me. I discussed this in great length just a couple weeks ago, but that was only in an effort to praise just how good the score by Michael Simpson and John King, aka The Dust Brothers was. Due to the film’s dark humor and overall dreary atmosphere the soundtrack needed to facilitate the mood in that direction. The score is like a dark trip-hop album, with bits of light and gallows humor dispersed throughout. If it wasn’t called Fight Club S/T it could just be considered a great trip-hop album. The Dust Brothers are no strangers to creating mood through a musical patchwork of loops and samples, and here they work to make David Fincher’s cult hit much better than it really was.
I’ll be perfectly honest here, the only reason I bought this album was because of my 11-year old son. We saw the movie in the theater and he was much more of a fan than I was. When the record was released I had no intention of buying it, but when he saw it he was like “That would be great to have, wouldn’t it?” I can’t deny my son’s enthusiasm for vinyl buying, so I chucked the $35 at my local record store guy and grumbled to myself as I walked to my car. Truth be told, it’s a pretty amazing score on its own. Zimmer knows how to create mood for a film, and with Junkie XL adding a bit of ADHD energy to the whole affair it turns out to be a damn good score. It’s sprawled across five sides of vinyl, with the 6th side being a killer etching.
Mogwai have found something that can keep them working until they want to retire: film scoring. If they grow tired of trying to reinvent what they started nearly 20 years ago they can write someone else’s vision. Atomic is the score to a documentary about the bombs being dropped on Japan and it paints a subtle musical interpretation of the film’s darker themes. With their score of Les Revenents and the new Leonardo DiCaprio documentary Before The Flood, in which they collaborate with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, they show that they’re far more than purveyors of the post-rock crown. In fact, they’ve melted the crown down and made really nice cufflinks out of it. Something they can wear when they’re nominated for their first ‘Best Film Score’ award.
I first heard Kreng, aka Pepijn Caudron, last year when he created one of my favorite scores for the horror/comedy Cooties. This year he scored the thriller Camino. I have not seen Camino, but if the score is any indication it’s one hell of a ride. Kreng shifted gears this time around and went for a more orchestral sound, leaving the trip-hop vibes for another project. There’s lots of shrieking strings and tense use of sound effects, with an overall heavy vibe. Kreng has become one of my favorite composers and I look forward to whatever he has coming up next.
Kurt Stenzel created an intimate synth score for Frank Pavich’s doc about the Alexander Jodorowsky’s doomed attempt at bringing Frank Herbert’s Dune to life. Stenzel uses pieces of conversation from the film and works them in seamlessly to space-y synth and guitar that at times almost feels mystical in its use. It’s an existential trip that I think Jodorowsky would be quite fond of, if he hasn’t yet heard it.
I think it’s safe to say that David Lynch’s Lost Highway was one of the most batshit crazy films of the nineties, and one of Lynch’s most absurd films(that’s saying a lot, people.) But if you looked past the doppleganger twists, noir-in-Hell story, and Robert Blake’s frightening makeup the movie had a pretty solid soundtrack. Bowie, Trent Reznor, Smashing Pumpkins, Lou Reed, NIN, and Angelo Badalamenti. The soundtrack was produced by Reznor and it has the flavor Reznor holed up in a house freaking out. It’s great having this thing finally available on vinyl.
I hadn’t heard of the film prior to seeing that it’s score was being released by Mondotees/Death Waltz, but all it took were a couple snippets on Soundcloud for me to engage my Paypal acct into buying mode. The score is exquisitely classic neo-futuristic synth. A cross between classics like Vangelis and Tangerine Dream with some more modern touches, in-particular Sinoia Caves work on the Beyond The Black Rainbow. Lovett made the film much better than it deserved to be. It wasn’t horrible, but too convoluted for its own good(great casting though, with Michael Ironside and AJ Bowen in supporting roles.) If you like listening to Blade Runner as much as watching it, you should already own this score.
Cliff Martinez can do no wrong in my eyes. His work only elevates whatever film it’s accompanying. He’s created this symbiotic relationship with director Nicolas Winding Refn, much like he did with Steven Soderbergh, where everything work together and becomes all the better by that artistic relationship. The Neon Demon is over-the-top and over indulgent, but that’s how it should be. Any kind of restraint and it just wouldn’t work as well. Martinez turns the score into a thumping techno musical world where dream and reality collide and embrace, bleeding all over each other. It’s his most intense score yet.
This will be the last you hear me utter “Stranger Things” for the rest of the year. I’m sure once season 2 hits I’ll start yacking about this show again, but until then this is it. The Duffer Bros locked into something with their debut show that a whole hell of a lot of us absorbed and took in like clean oxygen after being under a heavy quilt for too long. It was a refreshing take on the 80s kid films where everyone wasn’t a model and happy endings weren’t always a given. Stranger Things took the “rag tag group of outsiders” storyline and gave it new life with some new faces and some underused ones as well. Science fiction colliding with horror colliding with friendship created this year’s best television. To authenticate the nostalgia factor the Duffer Bros tapped Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein of Austin synth band SURVIVE to score their Netflix original series. The results? Classic 80s sound with deft modern touches. The score grabbed me before I saw a single shot of the actual show. The opening credits scene with the pulsating synthesizer hooked me instantly. The show could’ve been just okay and I would’ve continued on because of that music. Fortunately the show was spot-on.
No show surprised me more than Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot. Both season 1 and 2 were original pieces of television, putting the dark world that David Fincher has created in cinema and put it smack dab on cable TV(it’s on USA Network.) One of the most important aspects of the show is the music. It creates this world of musical ones and zeros that go to enhance the paranoid world of our protagonist Elliot Alderson. The music is this electronic pulse that seems to push the characters along in strange and dark places. You don’t know who to trust or what to believe is reality and what is part of the character’s failing mind. Mac Quayle’s scoring technique takes a few cues from the Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross playbook, using vintage sound and posing them in a modern world of tech geeks and international computer hacking. Quayle works subtly. It works so well that you don’t notice how good it is till you can enjoy the score completely on its own. It’s a riveting musical world that would appeal to electronic music fans and fans of background noise while you study or melt into the furniture.