Well, this is an exciting development. Howard Shore—the respected and prolific composer who has written terrific film music for directors like David Cronenberg (“The Brood,” “Dead Ringers," “eXistenZ”) and Peter Jackson ("The Lord Of The Rings” trilogy) has recently confirmed with The Hollywood Reporter that he will score Martin Scorsese’s upcoming religious drama “Silence.”
The film has been a passion project of the director’s for quite some time now and it’s not hard to see why—religion, just as much as crime and guilt, qualifies as an obsession in the films of Martin Scorsese, and it’s been over two decades since he tackled the subject head-on, as he did with 1988’s “The Last Temptation of Christ."
Shore has composed appropriately grand music for many of Scorsese’s later pictures, including “Gangs of New York” and “The Aviator,” and the cinema-going world waits with bated breath to see what the two will cook up together. Shore’s musical style is typically classical and elegant, but like any deft creative mind, his style is malleable and it’s not hard to imagine that Shore will conjure something solemn, brooding, and powerful for Scorsese’s tale of two Jesuit priests who travel to Japan to discover rampant persecution against a dwindling Christian population. “Silence”—which stars Andrew Garfield, Liam Neeson, Ken Watanabe, and Adam Driver, and is penned by “Gangs of New York” scribe Jay Cocks—has a release set for November 2015.
Lynn Shelton’s rambling coming-of-age comedy “Laggies” is still playing in theatres, and if you’re a fan of the kind of low-key, melancholy indie music that is typically associated with these sorts of flicks, then look no further, the soundtrack just arrived through Lakeshore Records (via Film Music Reporter). It features original music composed by Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, and we must say, it’s something of a perfect match—Shelton’s shaggy humanism seems like a snug fit for Gibbard’s gentle, big-hearted melodies about love and loss, and the notion of the indie heartthrob composing completely original music for a film is intriguing to say the least. The soundtrack was released digitally on November 4th and is currently available for pre-order on Amazon. For more details, visit the official website for the movie here. Tracklist below.
“Laggies” Soundtrack Tracklist
1. Main Titles
2. Post Reunion
3. A Pudding Bridge
4. Dad Office Sign
5. Meg’s Parents’ House
6. East to West
7. Garden
8. Drive to Grocery
9. Tp
10. Post Picnic
11. Drive Precall
12. Tour of House
13. Craig Megan Montage
14. Drive to Meet
15. Walk to Mex
16. Craig Megan Hookup
17. Annika Sees Makeout
18. Arrest Jail
19. Meg Comes Home
20. On Way to Airport
21. After Airport
22. It’s Never Too Late (End Credits)
There’s certainly an aura of mystery around “The Better Angels,” the directorial debut of Terrence Malick’s frequent editor and collaborator A.J. Edwards. The film—which looks back upon the unforgiving childhood years of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln in the wilderness of Indiana—received decidedly mixed reviews out of Sundance, with the Playlist’s own Rodrigo Perez observing that Edwards was ultimately “content to bask adoringly under the silhouette of his teacher.” And now an original score has arrived (via Film Music Reporter), with music composed by Hanan Townshend. It will be interesting to see if Townshend can summon the same transcendent tones that elevated “The Tree of Life” to such dizzying heights, or if he turns in more rustic, bare-bones musical work that’s more in line with the film’s story and setting. Either way, the original music from the Malick-produced “The Better Angels” is currently available for pre-order on Amazon, with a CD version to be officially released on December 2nd.
“The Better Angels” Soundtrack Tracklist
1. Symphony No. 8 in C Minor. III Adagio (excerpt)- Ireland National Symphony Orchestra
2. Symphony No. 1 in G Minor – II. – Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra
3. Growth No. 1
4. Growth No. 2
5. Star in the East – Brit Marling
6. Dread
7. Fall, 1818
8. Symphony No. 2, Op. 132, “Mysterious Mountain” – III. Andante espressivo – Seattle Symphony Orchestra
9. Valor
10. Emergence
11. Blossoming
12. Yankee Doodle Dandy – Jay Ungar
13. Shaker Loops: 1. Shaking and Trembling – Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
14. Seasons
15. Growth No.1 for flutes
16. Growth No.2 for flutes – Hanan Townshend
17. Symphony No. 2 in A Major – II. – Ukraine National Symphony
There are many indisputably great film composers—Bernard Hermann immediately comes to mind—but no one who has quite occupied the same space as genre wizard John Carpenter. He has composed the scores to almost all his films—the notable exception is his grisly remake of “The Thing," where he left the music duties to the great Ennio Morricone—and he has created some of the most iconic and recognizable movie themes in the history of the medium. The hair-raising “Halloween” theme, the pulse-pounding synths of “Assault on Precinct 13”—this writer even happens to have a particular affection for the deeply creepy music of the director’s underrated ghost story “The Fog.” And praise the dark lords, because the legendary director has graced us with a new album of, in his own words, “little moments of score from movies made in our imagination.” The album itself is called Lost Titles and it’s an assembly of previously-unreleased material that, with its cinematic intensity and incessantly pulsating synth, certainly bears the Carpenter touch. Also, the tracklist (“Obsidian,” “Abyss”, the highlight “Vortex” which you can listen to below) reads like the tracklist for the new Meshuggah album. So that’s pretty cool too. (via Black Book and AV Club)
John Carpenter “Lost Themes” Tracklist
1. Vortex
2. Obsidian
3. Fallen
4. Domain
5. Mystery
6. Abyss
7. Wraith
8. Purgatory
9. Night