Despite the current pandemic largely shutting down theaters and film releases, quite a few excellent scores released in March. While I cover several in-depth, score to the bottom of the page for a list of a whole lot more!
Drone, Drone, Drone
A trio of droning scores kicks off the month. First up is Hugo Nicolson’s score for Lost Transmissions, largely filled with unwavering ambient synth fields that create an encroaching sense of emptiness and despair, particularly fitting for the film’s theme of the struggles of mental illness. Occasionally the score increases in tempo to inject hope, however slight, capped by the sorrowfully catchy “Goodnight Not Goodbye” by IO Echo.
Within a few months of first finding out about Blanck Mass, they released their score for Calm With Horses. Delicate, caressing atmospherics collide with droning, anxious noise, creating a monolith of constant conflict. Even the heaviest, surprisingly catchy electronic elements of the score have a dark, grimy tinge, making the bleakness impossible to escape. Check out our interview with Blanck Mass here.
Wrapping up the trio is Justin Melland’s score for the World War I survival film Mosquito. Melland delivers a surprising and subversive take on the war with a very modern score. Walls of crushing noise slam the listener with little respite, channeling the main character’s fear as he struggles, abandoned in the wilds of a foreign land.
Acoustic and Country Makes an Appearance
Troop Zero is one of the loveliest films I’ve seen in a while, thanks in no small part to Rob Lord’s score. Lord combines elements of folk, bluegrass, and country with synth to create “cosmic country,” a spacey vibe that remains at home in its rural Georgia setting. Alongside the always-welcome Bowie tracks that appear in the film, Lord’s score is delightfully creative and infectiously fun.
Another score adopting a folkier, acoustic approach is William Tyler’s First Cow. Reminiscent of Neil Young’s Dead Man, the score is a meandering, free-flowing journey through the old American West, bolstered by a main theme brimming with energy and hope.
A Few More Scores
As sometimes happens, too many good scores released in March for me to cover! Check the rest of them out:
- Run This Town – Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge
- Chasing the Present – Snorri Hallgrimsson
- The Roads Not Taken – Sally Potter
- Never Rarely Sometimes Always – Julia Holter
- Capital in the Twenty-First Century – Jean-Benoit Dunckel
- The Trouble with Being Born – Peter Kutin and David Schweighart
- Stuffed – Ben Lovett