Clint Mansell has firmly established himself as one of the best film composers working today, so he doesn’t need to use gimmicks to draw interest to his music. But it’s easy to assume that by sampling the sounds of plants […]
I first met Roman Molino Dunn back in late 2020 as he finished up scoring the film Huracán for HBO Max (which we then discussed at length). Since then, he’s worked on films like The Card Counter and Red Rocket […]
The synths take on a mind of their own, the screen twists and morphs into a fantastical delusion, and we fall ever briefly into the rabbit hole.
Paying tribute to the master can be a daunting task. The question of whether to stay as close to the source material as possible or do something that is both a spiritual companion to the original and yet uniquely its […]
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by John Carpenter & Dave Davies (Limited Record Store Day Exclusive LP) While this writer will forever bow at the altar of John Carpenter’s solo work, there’s something very appealing about when the “Master of Horror” […]
Film composer and singer-songwriter Steph Copeland joins the show to talk about, among other things: her recent scores for Vicious Fun, The Retreat, and The Oak Room, as well as her trend of scoring for horror and balancing her dual identities of a […]
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 […]
Through a combination of Simon Waskow’s score and impressive sound design, Luz feels like a nonstop sonic trip. The film opens with a single shot that carries on for several minutes while noisy yet ponderous synths slowly build up before […]
In 2010 electronic music icons Daft Punk made their first (and to date, only) foray into film scoring with Tron: Legacy. On paper the pairing makes complete sense: the electronic legends with a space age aesthetic would bring to life […]
While John Carpenter is most often known for using synth, many of his earliest film scores were remarkably piano-driven, such as The Fog. To be clear, The Fog does have plenty of synth, but it isn’t the driving force behind […]
Unlike the scores of most horror films, composer Christopher Young’s approach to the music of Hellraiser largely avoids anything verging on “scary.” Instead, his synth-heavy score conjures a feeling of grandeur that is more akin to dark fantasy. The main […]
Independent film is one of the great breeding grounds for new film composers. Consider Hans Zimmer, for example, who started his career scoring direct-to-video films before eventually securing eleven Academy Award nominations. While these films don’t offer the same monetary […]