Interview: FARGO composer Jeff Russo makes his own musical hit for FX’s reinvention

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 07/13/2014
FARGO soundtrack | ©2014 Sony Music

With the winning likes of such improbable fim-to-tv adaptations as HANNIBAL, the boob tube and its scoring seem to have gotten significantly smarter and edgier than it’s been in the last several decades – or at the very least since the 16 years that FARGO first hit movie theaters. This North Dakota-set film noir represented the Coen Brothers at the height of their gleefully twisted irony, as a horrifically violent kidnapping-gone-wrong played out amidst cheerful salt of the Midwestern earth types. And only a humble (and very pregnant) female sheriff has the horse sense to figure out that this escalating […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE GAMBLER and BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE soundtracks

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 09/30/2013
THE GAMBLER soundtrack | ©2013 Quartet Records

Jerry Fielding was a composer who set a new high bar for tough guy expressionism in film music, taking an uncompromising, and often primally dissonant approach for such seething orchestral blood rites as THE WILD BUNCH, THE OUTFIT and LAWMAN. Now the new releases of THE GAMBLER and BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE offer a rich contrast in Fielding intensity, subduing his voice for a modern classicist, and then pouring on the danger for the Master of Disaster. If Gustav Mahler had become a film composer, it’s arguable that his often brooding, string-heavy style might have sounded something like Jerry Fielding’s […]Read On »


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Interview: THE POSSESSION composer Anton Sanko finds a new sound for exorcism

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 09/09/2012
THE POSSESSION soundtrack | ©2012 Lionsgate Records

When the word “exorcism” is bandied about, the movie-consecrated sights and sounds that seize us are usually comprised of tubular bells, bloodied crucifixes, shrieking dissonance, the shock of grotesquely wrenched bodies, feverish violins and the tormented cries of pubescent girls and their distraught parents. And while THE POSSESSION might have just a few of these stocks in horror trade, what impresses is the leap of faith it’s taken with the same old song and spew- that being of the demon’s transference to the Jewish religion, as trapped inside a “Dybbuk Box” (which once served as the film’s original title). Found […]Read On »


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CD Review: GREMLINS soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 12/25/2011
GREMLINS soundtrack | ©2011 Film Score Monthly

If you were among the generation that saw one great genre film after the other in the early ’80’s, perhaps no signature theme signaled these pictures’ often seditious spin on kid-friendly formulas than the sweet whistling of Gizmo and the cackling, rambunctious jazz rag of what would pop out of that furry little fella if you fed him after midnight. It’s taken nearly three decades for those little devils’ music to fully metamorphose, but at long last, Jerry Goldsmith’s full score to GREMLINS is finally here to create hilariously menacing havoc. While Goldsmith was famed for scoring the far more […]Read On »


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CD review: BEASTLY score soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/29/2011
BEASTLY score soundtrack | ©2011 Lakeshore Records

Composing in musical footsteps where Alan Menken (aka Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST), Georges Auric and Lee Holdridge didn’t fear to tread, rising composer Marcelo Zarvos has written what might be the most unexpectedly pleasant score to accompany a tale as seemingly old as time. His sprightly, alt. stylings of BEASTLY are especially happy given the Goth advertising that’s accompanied this tween update, which throws the characters into a magical high school setting. Zarvos strikes an often lilting, if not sometimes downright pokey mix between lush strings, tender piano playing and subtle rock stylings. Rather than his music reflecting a […]Read On »


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CD Review: FIRST KNIGHT original soundtrack (5,000 edition)

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 05/21/2011
FIRST KNIGHT Original Soundtrack | ©2011 La La Land Records

By 1995, Jerry Goldsmith was nearing the winter of his years, age which meant nothing when it came to the youthful passion he’d invest in his work for almost another decade. Yet it was precisely Goldsmith’s mature, melodic energy that made this king of Hollywood composers a natural to sit on the throne alongside Sean Connery in FIRST KNIGHT, a sweeping re-telling of the Arthurian legend that deserved a more noble reception. Now the regal, resounding brass is here to announce a two-CD set of Goldsmith’s complete score, the magnificence of his accomplishment soaring with symphonic heroism worthy of the […]Read On »


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CD Review: THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY soundtrack

By DANIEL SCHWEIGER 01/24/2011
House By the Cemetary (c) 2010 Beat Records

Where POLTERGEIST stands as a landmark in how mostly traditional instruments and orchestrations could be used to create an unearthly tone, rock-centric music certainly wasn’t a slouch at digging into those same fear centers, perhaps with even more chilling results. It’s likely no band did it better than Goblin, an Italian group that turned the progressive vibe pioneered by the likes of Pink Floyd and Zeppelin to far darker ends, using acid builds of electronics, strumming guitars and wailing voices to become escalating webs of fear, the big solo usually accompanying some unlucky woman’s evisceration in such classic scores as DEEP RED and SUSPIRIA.


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