When Alexandre Desplat’s score for The Sisters Brothers released back in 2018, I thought it was excellent. But it took me another two years to watch the film. When I finally heard the score in context it was barely recognizable, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have solidified their niche as composers of the desolate and decayed. Although they’ve occasionally veered off into the post-apocalyptic, their scores most commonly find themselves in hopeless neo-westerns. The duo’s score for Taylor Sheridan’s directorial […]
The Proposition is a neo-western about the struggle for civilization. But, unlike most westerns, the conflict surrounding civilization is not between colonizer and colonized. Instead, it is between Australia’s criminal, lawless roots and encroaching British imperialism wishing to bring law […]
Bone Tomahawk quickly rose to notoriety due to the overwhelmingly graphic, brutal nature of one particular scene. But, despite the fame of this scene, it’s not representative of the movie. Violence is rare and ends quickly. Instead, the majority of […]
Most westerns contain many grandiose shots of great untamed landscapes – wide rivers, soaring mountains, sprawling valleys. These shots tend to be sweeping and slow-to-develop, allowing for an equally grandiose score to fill the void. This relationship puts the focus […]