Author Archive

Composer Nathan Whitehead continues to take THE PURGE in ELECTION YEAR – Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 07/02/2016
THE PURGE ELECTION YEAR soundtrack | ©2016 Back Lot Music

The past few years have been a field day for dark, rhythm-driven suspense scores. But when many of these pulsating killing fields have a tendency to merge into one big murder dome, how does one keep the mayhem playing with a sense of fresh musical blood? Just ask Nathan Whitehead, a composer who’s consistently been playing his brutally cool way of surviving one Purge after the other with his action-horror identity intact. In creating what’s easily the most interesting Blumhouse franchise (or at least until they turn WHIPLASH into one), director-writer James DeMonaco took the idea of Classic Trek’s “Red Hour” […]Read On »


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Robert McDowell and Andy Hull vocally unleash the SWISS ARMY MAN – Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/26/2016
SWISS ARMY MAN soundtrack | ©2016 Lakeshore Records

When you’re marooned on an ocean-lost island, many things come to mind in the madness of utter isolation. For the increasingly suicidal Hank (Paul Dano), it’s the Greek chorus (by way of Polynesian chant) of American composers Andy Hull and Robert McDowell. Their harmonies are full of tuneful lament and poetic irony, vocalese that turns to self-accusing song, all telling Hank to take The Big Dive. But just before he steps over the edge, Hank’s isolation is interrupted by the appearance of the very Manny (Daniel Radcliffe), whose very dead condition doesn’t mean that this can’t become the beginning of […]Read On »


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THE NEON DEMON composer Cliff Martinez – Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 06/25/2016
THE NEON DEMON | ©2016 Broad Green Pictures

If there’s one thing that composer Cliff Martinez shares in common with Jesse, the nymphet model of THE NEON DEMON, then it’s that both are soft spoken while rocking peoples’ worlds. For Jesse, it’s becoming a sensation that drives LA’s fashionistas wild with desire as The Next Big Thing. For former Chili Peppers drummer Martinez, it was creating a sound of alt. rhythmic minimalism that changed the face of indie scoring with Steven Soderbergh’s SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE. But if Jesse has the misfortune of attracting equally gorgeous, if far more twisted people who want to absorb the blonde essence of her […]Read On »


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ROOTS: MANDELA composer Alex Heffes traces new music roots – Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/30/2016
ROOTS | ©2016 The History Channel

For a United Kingdom native with such diverse scores as ESCAPE PLAN, STATE OF PLAY, TOUCHING THE VOID and DEAR FRANKIE under his English language belt, Alex Heffes has likely traversed the musical continent of Africa more than any of his peers. Beginning his explorations with a harrowing escape from Uganda in THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, Heffes took an emotional journey of education alongside THE FIRST GRADER, then brought moving importance to the continent’s greatest leader in MANDELA: THE LONG WALK TO FREEDOM. Later this year, he’ll even be showing determined woman self worth through the game of chess when Heffes makes a full […]Read On »


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RAIDERS!: Documentary directors Jeremy Coon and Tim Skousen roll a home-made boulder of Indy boys to men – Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/26/2016

It’s a story that even Hollywood couldn’t make up, and a film urban legend until it was finally proven to be true. No doubt hundreds, if not thousand of children had their lives irreversibly altered upon their first, then repeated viewings of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, setting creative life goals in a way that went beyond play acting Indy in their friends’ back yards. But for a ragtag group of still-pubescent youths led by “indy” Chris Strompolos and director Eric Zala, it actually meant spending their lives straight into college re-creating RAIDERS shot-for-shot. Put away into their private warehouse, […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE ARK AND THE DELUGE soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/21/2016
THE ARK AND THE DELUGE soundtrack | ©2016 Music Box Records

Few film genres allow composers to write tone poems in the guise of scores like nature documentaries, their music getting to chronicle the grace, joy and life or death struggles of the planet in all of its infinite musical equivocations of the life force. Gabriel Yared set out to sea to in 1993 to sumptuously chronicle the glorious ballet between ocean and air. Hearing this glorious wash of melodic impressionism, you’re reminded that this Oscar-winning Lebanese composer just might be film scoring’s answer to France’s Claude Debussy, his DELUGE a cross between the flowing, romantic strings of “La Mer” as crossed […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE GREAT BUCK HOWARD soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/20/2016
THE GREAT BUCK HOWARD soundtrack | ©2016 La La Land Records

Before he became the go-to TV superhero scorer for DC with the likes of ARROW, THE FLASH and SUPERGIRL, Blake Neely was spending much of his scoring time during the first decade of the new millennium in the company of sweet romantic dramas like FIRST DAUGHTER, THE WEDDING DATE and STARTER FOR 10. One of his most delightful scores before he put on his cape was playing the amazing, jazzy mentalist tricks of 2008’s THE GREAT BUCK HOWARD. Director Sean McGinly based John Malkovich’s rage-prone mental illusionist on his own stint with The Amazing Kreskin, putting himself in the personage of Colin Hanks’ personal […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE INVITATION soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/18/2016
THE INVITATION soundtrack | ©2016 Lakeshore Records

A truly versatile composer when not superbly cranking out comedy scores like SPY, ZOOLANDER 2 and the forthcoming GHOSTBUSTERS reboot, Theodore Shapiro has shown an inventive affinity for typewriter-clicking drama with TRUMBO and creepily ethereal horror when ogling JENNIFER’S BODY. But it’s with THE INVITATION that Shapiro proves like never before just how unfunny he can be upon entering a suicide cult’s dinner party, as staged by JENNIFER director Karyn Kusma. Given a bloody desert as served by hosts straight out Heaven’s Gate, Shapiro’s weapon of choice is a single, overdubbed violin to further ratchet the tension. Where string playing of this sort is usually […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE SAINT soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/16/2016
THE SAINT soundtrack | ©2016 Music Box Records

The do-gooding bon vivant Simon Templar has been reincarnated in radio, television and film, as played by George Sanders, Roger Moore and Val Kilmer. However, his grooviest halo is heard by Music Box’s positively heavenly 3-CD release of the jazz-disco heroics that accompanied Simon Dutton over a series of TV movies in 1989. But listening to the swaggering saxes, punchy brass and romantically lush strings of Serge Franklin, you’d think you were back in 1981 spy dancing with Moore to the glitterball action of Bill Conti’s FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (if not doing the Euro-nightclub twist on the moon to Derek […]Read On »


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CD Review: THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/15/2016
THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO soundtrack | ©2016 Silva Screen Records

Though the decades of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s classic “Supermarionation” shows, the stirring, grandly thematic voice of Barry Gray made audiences believe that a puppet could fly – no more so then when piloting five spaceships called The Thunderbirds. Now spiffed up with a state-of-the-art mix of modelwork and CGI animation, THE THUNDERBIRDS has taken new flight on English TV, and soon America’s Netflix instant. Old school fans will likely miss the charm of wire-controlled marionettes and Gray’s straight-ahead scoring that nicely combined British patriotic pomp with hep 60’s pop. This reboot is pitched straight ahead for an adrenalized tween video […]Read On »


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