This week’s selection is a rock groove with an aggressive and almost ponderous momentum to it. If pressed to characterize the emotional mood, I’d probably say “bulldozery”.
(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)
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Anvil Cloud | |
From a cemetery scene in the movie The F-Zone, this cue is on somber side, but with some lyrical qualities as well.
In order to underscore the sense of bleak loss, in one section I harmonized a solo flute with four double basses, rather than the thick cello/bass harmonies that one might expect for this sort of moment. The effect emphasizes the high and low ends of the orchestra while leaving a wide space in between. It’s an interesting sound, and one which feels distinctly funereal in mood.
(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)
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A Lost Brother | |
This week’s attitude-laiden selection hybridizes orchestral scoring, rock, world music, and electronica in a kind of violent auditory stew. Major props go to Kyle Johnson for contributing some cool rock guitar licks.
(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)
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Pugnacious Rex | |
This week’s music selection is just a few days old, so try not to wake it with loud noises. An enigmatic and mystical-sounding piano introduction gives way to a rising orchestral crescendo. A few touches of electronica supplement the predominantly acoustic timbre. Just the right mood for unearthing ancient tomes, invoking wrathful demons, or other activities you might have planned for the weekend.
(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)
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Magic of the Ancients | |
This week’s selection is an oddball cue that’s a bit hard to categorize. It’s perhaps best described as a rhythmic/minimalist groove with an eclectic instrumental set. The driving sleigh bell brings winter associations, but the eastern-sounding musical scale makes the tone tense rather than jovial. You can probably listen to it more quickly than I can come up with a meaningful description. 
(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)
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Snow Running | |
This week’s music selection is from the short thriller Dead Line. Detuned piano, fiddle drones, and exotic bells create a disquieting atmosphere to accompany the image of lone figure walking through the Nevada desert at dusk.
(Click on the play button to stream.)
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Walking | |
We kick off the new year with one of my own personal favorites, the opening titles to the feature film Against Time. In the film, a teen whiz kid (Ean Mering) is accosted by a seemingly deranged old man (Robert Loggia) claiming to be his future self, here to stop a terrible mistake his past self is about to make. The clincher: time travel has supposedly disoriented him so much that he can’t remember what the mistake is.
Music written for opening titles tends to be an emotional synopsis of some element of the film. Here I was trying to capture a sense of passion and yearning, both of youth and old age, as well as a touch of the supernatural flavoring of time travel.
(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)
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Against Time | |
Here’s a bit of noble militaristic heroism, also from the Empire Earth 2 score. Recording once again courtesy of the Budapest Film Orchestra.
(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)
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The Troops Arrive | |
This choral and orchestral piece opens up Empire Earth 2 with a healthy serving of sturm und drang. Chorus and orchestra both recorded in the beautiful renovated Magyar Radio studios in Budapest.
One problem facing composers writing the archetypal “chanting chorus” piece is what to do about lyrics. One school of thought is to not bother - after all, you’re mostly going to hear the vowels. But not wanting to give the chorus a stream of nonsense syllables, I took it upon myself to cobble together a miniature Latin war poem. Finding words that both made sense and rhymed turned out to be quite an effort, even with the generous assistance of some Latin scholars I reached via the Internet. To those who’ve learned this intricate language: I salute you!
(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)
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Morituri Te Salutant | |
This week’s selection is the opening theme to one of my first feature film scores, written for a political thriller called The F-Zone. The moody main theme for strings alternates with a more lyrical secondary melody for oboe, played here by Jon Clarke. Recorded at the (sadly now-defunct) O Henry recording studio.
(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)
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The F-Zone (Main Titles) | |