Jay Wadley’s score for Driveways is one of the most beautiful scores I’ve heard in quite a while. Led by a purposefully meandering piano, Wadley builds up a deeply intimate and introspective atmosphere striking at the core of love, family, and friendship. Between Driveways, 2019’s Adam, and his upcoming score for Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Wadley is poised to become a breakout film composer.
Every Terence Blanchard-Spike Lee collaboration is highly anticipated, with their recent endeavor – Da 5 Bloods – being no different. As expected, Blanchard delivers another excellent score, this time appropriately with a militaristic aesthetic. While Blanchard’s score does have its more bombastic moments, these are balanced by his restrained, somber approach that avoids the pure heroism and glorification present in so many other war-themed scores.
Normally Tahiti conjures images of pristine beaches and relaxation – the perfect vacation – but Olivier Mellano’s score for the Tahiti-set film L’Oiseau de Paradis instead creates a dismal world. The discordant, minimal, and industrial score is a noisy and hopeless vacation in the heart of suffering. Mellano is a prolific musician and composer in France and, given the strength of L’Oiseau de Paradis, hopefully his future film scores begin receiving a higher profile internationally. I will certainly be looking for them.
Some Newcomers to Film Music
Consisting, in part, of two former members of Stereolab, Cavern of Anti-Matter deliver their first film score – In Fabric. Since the film is meant to be an homage to Giallo horror, Cavern of Anti-Matter draw on similar 70s and 80s horror influences en route to crafting a hypnotic dream that slowly unfolds into a pensive, supernatural nightmare. The drawback for those listening to the release on its own is its nearly two-hour length. Though daunting, the runtime is necessary for the evolution of its themes and atmosphere, never feeling repetitive or a grind, and it is well worth the wait for those patient enough to listen.
The choice of rapper/producer El-P to score Capone was equal parts daring and refreshing. Despite his obvious musical talent, I was unsure about how the score would turn out. He blew away even my highest expectations. Capone is noisy, droning, and oppressive, enshrouded in a constant haze that perfectly encapsulates Capone’s loss of reality and the constant intrusion of delusions and memories that invade his diminishing sanity. Occasionally lucid moments intervene, sometimes of sorrow and others of calm, but El-P ensures that Capone’s madness always returns. With the success of this score, hopefully filmmakers and studios will be more receptive to unconventional composers and musical styles.
“Honorable Mentions”
Some months have 50 or more film scores release and, while I try to listen to each one, it’s difficult to write about all of the scores I enjoy. With that in mind, here are a few other May scores that are among the best but that I simply did not have enough time to write about (this isn’t a judgment on them being better or worse than the ones discussed above):
- Flying Cars by Jacob Montague
- Take Me Somewhere Nice by Ella van der Woude
- To Hell and Gone by Sean Carney
- Queen of Paradis by Carl Lindstrom
