Category Archives: Soundtracks

Soundtrack Review: Tales From the Loop (2020)

Fox Music/Hollywood Records has released the digital soundtrack from the Amazon Original series, Tales from the Loop. From executive producer Matt Reeves and based on the acclaimed art of Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag, Tales from the Loop explores the town and people who live above “The Loop,” a machine built to unlock and explore the mysteries of the universe – making things possible that were previously relegated only to science fiction. In this fantastical mysterious town, poignant human tales are told that bare universal emotional experiences, while drawing on the intrigue of genre storytelling.

The album features original themes by Philip Glass and score by Paul Leonard-Morgan. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Philip Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. Glass has expanded his repertoire to include music for opera, dance, theater, chamber ensemble, orchestra and film. His scores have received Academy Award nominations (Kundun, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal) and a Golden Globe (The Truman Show). Paul Leonard-Morgan’s unique cinematic style of fusing orchestra with electronica has put him in high demand as a film composer, a producer and arranger for bands, and has led him to win a BAFTA award, and receive Emmy & Ivor Novello nominations. In 2016, Leonard-Morgan began working with Academy-Award winning director Errol Morris on a string of projects including the documentary feature The B-Side, the award-winning Netflix series Wormwood, and the newly-completed motion picture on Steve Bannon, American Dharma. Other credits include The Quiet One–the story of Rolling Stones founding member Bill Wyman, the feature Last Breath, the hit series reboot Dynasty for The CW, and Designated Survivor on Netflix.

Leonard-Morgan said (on working on Tales from the Loop):

“Collaborating with Philip Glass on Tales from the Loop was an incredible experience. Philip and I had a discussion with Nathaniel Halpern (showrunner) and Mark Romanek (executive producer) about their vision for the show, the incorporation of unusual instruments, and their shared desire of wanting the soundtrack to be an integral part of the show: ‘Music which could be listened to by itself, melodies which could be hummed, a soundtrack which will stand the test of time apart from the series.’ Philip went and scored a bunch of initial ideas, as did I, and we discussed where they all might work together. Both of us playing off each other’s sounds and melodies to create a truly unique score. Over and again, we kept coming back to the original idea: to make beautiful music, which would work hand in hand with Nathaniel’s brilliant visions and beautiful cinematography. The 8 episodes are so unique—they’re like nothing we’ve ever seen, and hopefully the score stays true to this. Melodies come back throughout the show, each guiding us through the world of the loop. During recording sessions every 3 weeks, the natural sounds of the solo violin and the solo cello gave a beautiful, haunting sound to the loop, becoming an integral part of the sound.”

Glass added:

“I’ve always tried to collaborate with people from many disparate perspectives; everyone from indigenous musicians to electronic musicians have expanded my musical sensibilities. Working with Paul was no exception and the intersection of our two styles has produced a score both unexpected and familiar that accompanies the series beautifully.”

The soundtrack for Tales From the Loop is like nothing I’ve ever heard for television before, and I don’t say that lightly. Television music, in my experience, is either quite minimal or very grandiose (think Game of Thrones for the latter). But Tales from the Loop strikes a middle ground that I don’t think I’ve ever heard until now. Everything, every single track, is perfectly symphonic, like something you’d hear in a concert hall. And I can’t emphasize enough how much of a good thing this is. This is music that can be enjoyed completely separate from the show as well as while you watch each episode. It takes phenomenal skill to make music that can thrive outside of the show and with Philip Glass and Paul Leonard-Morgan in charge of the score it’s little wonder it worked out that way.

In hindsight, it actually makes a lot of sense that the soundtrack for Tales From the Loop would feel symphonic in nature. After all, Glass is well known for his concert works, and it’s only natural that that would bleed over into his work for film and television.

If you’re able to, check out the soundtrack for Tales From the Loop. It’s peaceful, it’s relaxing, and it’s like listening to a long, quiet symphonic work in a concert hall (and that’s a good thing).

Let me know your thoughts on Tales From the Loop (and it’s soundtrack) in the comments below and have a great day!

See also:

TV Soundtracks

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Soundtrack Review: The Two Popes (2019)

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Late last year, Milan Records released the soundtrack for the Netflix original film The Two Popes. Accompanying brilliant direction by Fernando Meirelles and indomitable performances by both Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce is an entirely charming, playful, and yet robust score devised by multifaceted artist and composer Bryce Dessner whose music soulfully uncovers the individual voices for both Pope Benedict and Cardinal Bergoglio (the future Pope Francis) while still revealing each Pope’s humane vulnerabilities and finding common consonance between them in an oftentimes lonesome Vatican locale.

With an expansive body of work that extends beyond the hugely-successful band, Dessner brings his experience as both a GRAMMY Award-winning classical composer and Golden Globe-nominated film composer to the The Two Popes. Regarding his work on The Two Popes, Dessner had this to say:

“It was an absolute joy to work with such an incredible cast and team on The Two Popes. In particular I have always been a huge fan of director Fernando Mereilles and it was an honor to finally work directly on a film with him. His work is deeply musical and it was a wonderful journey to find the sound world for The Two Popes, which began with the intimate and incredible performances of Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce. This was the first film I’ve worked on a score where I got to visit the set as they were shooting in Rome for a few days and began composing in the room with the actors and crew. The score has moments of more abstract minimal and layered orchestral music which I wrote for Benedict’s scenes, and then music inspired by Argentina folk music (in particular Mercedes Sosa and Dino Saluzzi) for which I spent a lot of time composing for the classical guitar again.”

Dessner collaborates with some of today’s most creative and respected artists, including Philip Glass, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens, Johnny Greenwood, Bon Iver, Kelley O’Connor, Nico Muhly and Steve Reich, who named Dessner “a major voice of his generation.” His orchestrations can be heard on the new albums of Paul Simon and Bon Iver. Further film score credits include The Kitchen for Warner Bros. (2019) as well as The Two Popes by Oscar-nominated director Fernando Meirelles (2019).

I found the soundtrack for The Two Popes to be deeply relaxing. Dessner seemed intent on creating music that seemed to complement the mood you’d find in the Church and in two such high-ranking officials as Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Bergoglio. I have to confess that I was briefly confused by the tracks with classical guitar reminding me of Spain before I remembered that Bergoglio comes from Argentina (a Spanish-speaking country), in which case that style of music makes perfect sense.

Compared to other soundtracks I’ve listened to, the music for The Two Popes is pretty minimalistic, but that makes sense since the emphasis is supposed to be on the dialogue between Benedict XVI and Bergoglio. Too much music would be a distraction, and Dessner seems to have taken great care to not overdo his musical contributions to the film.

If you’re looking for a relaxing soundtrack to listen to, Bryce Dessner’s score for The Two Popes is a good choice. The soundtrack is available now from Milan Records.

THE TWO POPES (MUSIC FROM THE NETFLIX FILM)
TRACKLISTING –
Walls
Cuando Tenga la Tierra – Mercedes Sosa
Dialogues
Vote Counting
Ratzinger Election
Garden Dialogues
Was It Something I Said
Shifting Gardens
Cathedral
Bergoglio’s Awakening
Siete de Abril
Dirty War
Taken Away and Tortured
They Took Esther
Another Bergoglio
Walls 2
Pope Francis
Sombras de Buenos Aires
Minguito – Dino Saluzzi
Sastanàqqàm – Tinariwen
Besame Mucho – Ray Conniff & His Orchestra

Let me know what you think about The Two Popes and its soundtrack in the comments below and have a great day!

See also:

Film Soundtracks A-W

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Soundtrack News: Anne Nikitin’s score for ‘The Trial of Ratko Mladić’ to be released April 3rd

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Node Records has announced that they are releasing Anna Nikitin’s score to the documentary The Trial of Ratko Mladić on April 3rd, 2020. The Trial of Ratko Mladić is a Sandpaper Films documentary that covers the dramatic five-year trial of the man held responsible for the siege of Sarajevo and the murder of over 7,000 men and boys in Srebrenica – an epic story of justice, accountability and a country trying to escape from its bloody past. The film received the 2019 Grierson Award for Best Single International Documentary, aired on PBS FRONTLINE, and was one of Filmmaker Magazine’s Top Scary Political Docs of 2018.

Anne Nikitin is an Ivor Novello Award-nominated composer best known for her work on director Bart Layton’s BAFTA-winning film The Imposter, critically-acclaimed heist movie American Animals, BBC Drama / PBS Masterpiece’s Mrs. Wilson, and the Ursula MacFarlane-directed Untouchable: The Rise and Fall of Harvey Weinstein.

From sweeping orchestral scores to dirty guitars, mesmeric synths and delicate piano refrains, Anne is known for creating unique sound worlds spanning a wide range of genres.
Track Listing:

1. The Trial Begins
2. This Complex Land
3. Finding a Father
4. Road to War
5. Wounds Won’t Heal
6. Men and Women Separated
7. Saliha’s Song
8. Mass Grave
9. Four Football Fields
10. Srebrenica Prosecution
11. Landscape
12. Mladić Day
13. Elvira
14. Tomasica Prosecution
15. Mass Funeral
16. Crimes Against Humanity
17. The Verdict
18. Justice

The soundtrack for The Trial of Ratko Mladić will be available on April 3, 2020.

See also:

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Soundtrack Review: Stuffed (2019)

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Lakeshore Records has made available Ben Lovett’s original motion picture soundtrack for Stuffed, a film directed by Erin Derham. Stuffed is a documentary feature film about the surprising and unique world of taxidermy. Told through the eyes and hands of a passionate and diverse group of renowned artists from around the world, the film explores the lives and perspectives of an extraordinary subculture that exists at the intersection of art and science. With a keen eye on conservation and the natural world, Stuffed also explores the important and unexpected relationship that exists between taxidermy and the human effort to preserve the beauty of nature.

Ben Lovett is an American songwriter and composer best known for crafting unconventional scores to a diverse range of films and documentaries including the Netflix cult favorite The Ritual, Amy Seimetz’s award-winning noir Sun Don’t Shine, Independent Spirit Award nominee The Signal, the Duplass Brothers’ survival thriller Black Rock, Emma Tammi’s avant-garde western The Wind, and the time travel sci-fi noir Synchronicity which earned Ben a nomination for “Discovery of the Year” at the prestigious World Soundtrack Awards. Lovett’s most recent work debuted at Sundance 2020, a reunion with director and longtime collaborator David Bruckner for the upcoming Searchlight thriller The Night House.

Speaking on their close collaboration throughout the making of the film, Derham explained:

“The process was very unique in that Ben started writing and recording the score while I was filming. I knew I wanted Stuffed to feel beautiful and romantic like a Jane Austen novel but giving it that distinct Lovett edge. I’m Ben’s biggest fan. All of his movie scores blow me away, but when I first heard the ‘Stuffed Waltz’ suite it felt like he’d written a song about my heart. It represented the humbling journey that took place as I filmed wildly different people around the world for nearly three years and had all my preconceived judgements about taxidermy challenged.”

Lovett described his score as a collection of “musical dioramas” that aim to capture a glimpse into the minds and hearts of a variety of uncommon personalities. Lovett explained:

“I was inspired by the characters in the film who all come from very different political, social, and economic backgrounds and often disagree on most things, but ultimately populate a distinct subculture that’s bound by a deep and genuine love for nature. I wanted to capture that unmistakable childlike wonder they all have when they talk about animals. For taxidermists the work they do is not at all about Death, it’s about Life.”

The soundtrack for Stuffed was nothing like what I expected, though honestly I’m not sure what I should expect for a documentary about taxidermy. The music is beautiful and delightfully quirky in many places, especially in the opening tracks like “Encyclopedia” and “Life.” If the music is meant to reflect the personalities of the people working on these creations and the creations themselves, then Lovett definitely succeeded.

The instruments come together to create something bright and vibrant, and now that I think about it that could be what surprised me. When *I* think about taxidermy the big thing I remember is that these animals are dead, but Stuffed appears to be taking the opposite approach (and Lovett says as much above): don’t think about them as dead, think about how they simulate Life! And that’s why the music is so vibrant and alive, because that’s the work these taxidermists are doing.

If you listen to nothing else on this soundtrack, you need to listen to “Stuffed Waltz No. 2” and “Stuffed Waltz No. 3.” These are two beautiful pieces that take a moment away from the hustle and bustle of the regular soundtrack and seem to be created to give you time to think about what you’ve seen thus far. And for the record, they are in fact true waltzes, I can hear the 3/4 time clear as a bell (I wasn’t sure at first if the “waltz” in the cue title was literal or figurative).

Listening to soundtracks like this is giving me a renewed appreciation for documentaries and everything that goes into making them. Sometimes, I hate to admit it, these works can get overlooked because they’re all factual and can be mistakenly perceived as “boring.” But works like Stuffed are actually working really hard to tell a good story and the music has to work just as hard as any action film score to help tell the audience what they need to know.

I really liked the soundtrack to Stuffed and you should definitely check it out if you get the chance. Let me know what you think about Stuffed in the comments below and have a great day!

See also:

Film Soundtracks A-W

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Check out the YouTube channel (and consider hitting the subscribe button)

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Star Wars: The Phantom Menace “Augie’s Great Municipal Band” (1999)

See also:

Film Soundtracks A-W

Become a Patron of the blog at patreon.com/musicgamer460

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Soundtrack Review: Outer Wilds (2019)

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Last year, composer Andrew Prahlow took us on a sonorous journey in Mobius Digital and Annapurna Interactive’s video game adventure through time and space – Outer Wilds. In the game, the player-character finds themselves on a planet with only 22 minutes before the local sun goes supernova and kills them. The player continually repeats this 22-minute cycle by learning details that can help alter the outcome on later playthroughs. Prahlow’s celebrated soundtrack accompanies players’ planetary expeditions with a tranquil mix of lulling synths and electronic reverie (and the catchiest banjo motif this side of the galaxy!).

Speaking about his approach to scoring the game, Prahlow had the following to say:

When asked to compose the music for ‘Outer Wilds’, I wanted to create a sense of simplicity and nostalgia as the player slowly becomes familiar with the world of the Hearthians. I immediately thought of an old beat up banjo that I had received as a gift a few years prior.

This main theme contrasted the melancholic textures of the Nomai [a technologically advanced alien race in the game] – where I crafted ambient soundscapes with guitar and synthesizers, heavily influenced by post-rock. As the player explores the solar system and the story moves forward, these textures become more complex, along with the campfire tunes that are the center of the score.

Having listened to the soundtrack, I have to say that the Outer Wilds soundtrack is not what I expected given the story is about an astronaut exploring a planet and an extinct alien civilization. The banjo dominates a large portion of the score, giving the music a very rustic sound that is, again, unexpected for the genre, but also comforting because it is familiar. And indeed, the main banjo theme for this score is very catchy, I really liked it. It’s subtle enough that you could listen to it during a long period of gameplay and not get tired of it.

I also feel it’s very interesting that Prahlow makes the score more complex the farther along you go in the story. It’s almost like musically rewarding the player by giving them new music as they explore new portions of the game. This is something I don’t recall seeing in other video games and I think it’s an interesting detail that sets this game apart in a good way.

Outside of the Main Theme, the score possesses a wide range of soundscapes, all cleverly executed and that give the impression of various places. For instance, “Space” and “The Sun Station” give off the vibe of being in the void of outer space. By contrast, “The Nomai” and “Nomai Ruins” are among the most melancholy in the entire score, echoing the demise of a long-dead civilization. Those last two are actually some of my favorite pieces in the score, they provide a great contrast to “Timber Hearth” and the game’s main theme. And finally, I have to give a mention to “Let There Be Light”, an all too short cue that fairly explodes (pun fully intended if you think about it) with sound and imagined light. It’s unlike anything heard in the score to date and was a very pleasant surprise given the overall tone of the score. I really liked that moment and it was a lot of fun to imagine what was happening in the game to create that kind of music.

All in all, you should definitely check out the score for Outer Wilds as it is very beautiful. In fact, for his work on this score, Andrew Prahlow has been nominated by both BAFTA and G.A.N.G. (Game Audio Network Guild) in multiple categories for his dynamic score for Outer Wilds. Prahlow’s score for Outer Wilds has previously won “Best Original Score” at Only Single Player’s Best of 2019 Awards.

Let me know what you think of Outer Wilds (and its soundtrack) in the comments below and have a great day!

See also:

Video Game Soundtracks

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Check out the YouTube channel (and consider hitting the subscribe button)

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Soundtrack Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars-The Final Season (Episodes 1-4) (2020)

Film Soundtracks A-W

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