Soundtracks

CD Review: OUIJA and JESSABELLE soundtracks

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/02/2014
OUIJA soundtrack | ©2014 Back Lot Music

Anton Sanko has certainly come a long way in scoring horror films since the days of “Strangeland,” employing the off-kilter vibe of such dramatic indie scores as SCOTLAND, PA., LIFE IN FLIGHT and RABBIT HOLE to the far weirder likes of LAST WINTER and an episode a piece for FEAR ITSELF and MASTERS OF HORROR. In the process, Sanko has impressed by evolving from cool, sampled quirk to fully commanding darkly emotional orchestral forces for THE POSSESSION and THE DEVIL’S HAND, a talent that only becomes more uncannily formidable with the ghostly assaults of OUIJA and JESSABELLE. While the first […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE KNICK soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/01/2014
THE KNICK soundtrack | ©2014 MIlan Records

Where prolific filmmaker Steven Soderbergh has gone to Thomas Newman for the trippy ambience of SIDE EFFECTS, and David Holmes for the jazz groove of the OCEANS trilogy, Cliff Martinez continues to prove a reliable, experimental constant since director and composer made their indie bones on 1989s SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE. Both have considerably broadened their repertoire from that ambient hip-hop score which redefined the look and sound of alternative cinema, their collaborations ranging from the enraged crime percussion of THE LIMEY to the modernistic orchestral score of SOLARIS and the retro-virus suspense of CONTAGION. But whatever approach he’s taken, […]Read On »


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CD Review: REAR WINDOW soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/30/2014
REAR WINDOW soundtrack | ©2014 Movie Score Media

In a particularly striking case of turning fate’s rotten apples into ironic oranges, quadriplegic actor Christopher Reeve went with his immobilizing accident to gain the opportunity of bring true realism to the part of the paralyzed, voyeuristic hero – whom unlike the broken-legged James Stewart of the Hitchcock original – isn’t going to be getting out of his wheelchairl. Beyond Reeve get an Emmy nomination for his performance here, the TV remake’s second Emmy recognition would deservedly go to composer David Shire. With such memorably tense scores to his credit as THE CONVERSATION and ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, Shire approached […]Read On »


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CD Review: SEE NO EVIL soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/29/2014
SEE NO EVIL soundtrack | ©2014 Intrada Records

Where Henry Mancini got to play blind woman’s bluff with Audrey Hepburn in WAIT UNTIL DARK with creeping restraint, composer Elmer Bernstein got to scare the already-gone sight out of Mia Farrow with way more symphonic lavishness in this 1971 thriller from BOSTON STRANGLER director Richard Fleischer, who opened up the basic girl-in-peril idea from a Manhattan apartment to an English home and its surrounding countryside – where nearly all of the occupants have gone lights out thanks to a cowboy-boot wearing killer. Where Bernstein was best known for intimate Hollywood dramas or period epics, the composer was equally adept […]Read On »


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CD Review: WHITE BIRD IN A BLIZZARD soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/28/2014
WHITE BIRD IN A BLIZZARD soundtrack | ©2014 Lakeshore Records

From “The Doom Generation” to SPLENDOR and KABOOM! Greg Araki’s films are Technicolor, sexed-up acid trips, full of bad behavior that can range from the hilarious to the disturbing – but never without empathy for his misfit characters. Two composers to particularly to get that vibe are Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd, who first teamed to give a beautiful, translucent synth-rock vibe to the surreal UFO imagery that hid two young men’s awful truth behind Araki’s MYSTERIOUS SKIN. Now the filmmaker sends another teen on a hallucinatory vision question to find the WHITE BIRD IN A BLIZZARD, a caged bird […]Read On »


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CD Review: ST. VINCENT soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/27/2014
ST. VINCENT soundtrack | ©2014 Sony Classical Records

MARLEY AND ME composer Theodore Shapiro has always had a thing for the comedic underdog in such scores as DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY and ONCE CHANCE, all while creating clearly distinct musical characters for these seeming losers, whether it be wacky percussion, dream-like melody or operatic triumph. But he’s likely never gotten a true, cantankerous schlub like Bill Murray’s boozing Vietnam vet who seems to be anything but ST. VINCENT. Yet like all of his previous life-losers, Shapiro finds a heart of gold underneath them with his catchy, rhythmic approach. The trick here […]Read On »


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CD Review: 21 and 22 JUMP STREET soundtracks

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/26/2014
22 and 21 JUMP STREET soundtrack | ©2014 La La Land Records

Far from signaling film scoring Devo-lution, ex-cult rocker Mark Mothersbaugh has consistently proven himself as one of Hollywood’s most wackily animated composers, loading his work with hip retro samples, wacky rhythms and knowingly bombastic strings. It’s a child-like glee that’s often having fun with his assignments while satirizing them at the same time, an ironic, adrenalin sense of fun that most recently hit it awesomely big for filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller with THE LEGO MOVIE, a road of unabashed energy that began in CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS. But Mothersbaugh’s most hilariously satiric work for the duo […]Read On »


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AUTOMATA composer Zacarias M. de la Riva finds the musical ghost in the machines – Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/24/2014
AUTOMATA soundtrack | ©2014 Movie Score Media Records

More than ever in science fiction, humans are being proven to inferior, doomed species in the face of the infinitely more compassionate creations they now want to destroy. It’s a message that science fiction cinema has increasingly hammered in, whether the lab-born synthetics were virtually indistinguishable from us (BLADE RUNNER, A.I., THE MACHINE) or had an artificial appearance that led us to think it was impossible for them to have a soul (“I, Robot”). But now, even the most pathetically abused, humanoid-shaped machines are given the grace of God in AUTOMATA, no more so than in the gorgeous spirituality of […]Read On »


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THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING composer Johann Johannsson gets scientific – Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 11/08/2014
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING soundtrack | ©2014 +180 Records

One could say it’s the cold, volcanic icescape of the earth’s most forbidding land mass that have often infused Johann Johannsson’s music with a beautifully foreboding presence. Like his innovative countrywoman Bjork, Johannsson received art-music acclaim by merging modern classical and alternative music to haunted and mesmerizing effect, creating a series of conceptual albums like “Englaborn” and “Dis” at the same time he began scoring a myriad of shorts, features and documentaries – usually involving brooding, disaffected characters he could apply a psychologically-minded musical style to (even giving ennui to prairie dogs in the process). With his songs playing a […]Read On »


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Composer Kathryn Bostic has some notes for DEAR WHITE PEOPLE – Interview

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 10/27/2014
Dear White People | ©2014 Roadside Attractions

For a country where some people can congratulate themselves for electing a black President, it often seems that America is more behind the times then ever, both in lethally law-enforced terms, and artistic ones where “black” entertainment more often than not engages in minstrel show drama and humor. For an “enlightened” Hollywood that engages in “some of my best friends” lip service, it’s particularly disappointing when the precious few black film composers are kept by The Man in a musical ghetto where only brown color applies. It’s the kind of can’t-we-all-just-get along attitude that would make any self-respecting minority get […]Read On »


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