I recently had the pleasure of chatting with composer duo Two Twenty Two (comprised of Tom Nettleship and Daisy Coole). Together they’ve composed around thirty short and feature films over the last several years, ranging from hard dramas to sci-fi […]
The partnership between the Coen brothers and Carter Burwell has had fantastic results over the last several decades, including Burwell’s underrated score for True Grit. In True Grit, fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross hires drunken and trigger-happy U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn to […]
An extended wait for the next entry of a series can raise anticipation, but also skepticism. I fell into the latter category upon hearing that, after nearly thirty years, a new Bill and Ted film was coming. But composer Mark […]
Welcome to the second volume of “Short and Sweet,” my new semi-regular series on short films and their music. This volume sees another wide range of films and composers, from Vin Diesel’s breakout short film ‘Multi Facial’ (for which he […]
The Addams Family are known for being creepy, kooky, and altogether ooky. Fortunately, while composer Marc Shaiman embraces the Family’s iconic traits, his score shows just enough restraint to prevent the film from being too over the top. It would […]
Steven Price continues his streak of impressive yet unheralded scores with Archive. Not surprisingly, Price creates a largely electronic score for this film set in 2038. But this is not the stereotypical glossy neon synthwave future; it is droning, bleak, […]
I hadn’t watched The NeverEnding Story in well over a decade and expected the music to have aged terribly: 80s’ synth in fantasy films rarely holds up (not to mention a title song sung by Kajagoogoo’s lead vocalist). But, while […]
I recently had a chance to talk with musician Sean Carney in my first-ever video interview (an uncut video is available here). A jazz vocalist, touring guitarist, and member of the bands WOLVES and Miscellaneous, Sean has recently released his […]
I used to watch quite a few martial arts/Kung Fu films when I was younger, but the practice fell by the wayside in subsequent years. Like many in the West, I eventually didn’t take the genre seriously, viewing it as […]
I was initially skeptical about Girl on the Third Floor – how good could the music to a CM Punk-starring horror film be? But my interest grew when I saw that legendary punk musician and producer Steve Albini was involved. […]
After years in the underground punk and rock scenes, Tamar-kali made a splash with her debut score: 2017’s Mudbound. While Mudbound may have been a more conventional (albeit quite excellent) work, Tamar-kali has moved into far more experimental territory with […]
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, […]