How did you get into film scoring?
There was an album I made in 2016, Études, which ended up with [the late composer] Jóhann Jóhannsson through a mutual friend. He contacted me in order to record double-bass for a Ryuichi Sakamoto rewrite he did. I came to his Kreuzberg studio for two sessions. Before I went home, we sat down and started talking about music. We ended up having a five hour conversation, showing each other different kinds of music. He was a living encyclopaedia of music, from very popular to obscure experimental to high-brow composers, he knew it all and treated it in the same respect. During that conversation, he showed me footage from Last and First Men and asked me whether I'd be interested to work with him on producing that score. That's how I ended up working on my first film music.
What interests you in scoring films?
I was always interested in working on music in different mediums. I composed music for dance and theatre in the past and worked with video art or installations. I'm interested in the role of sounds, and how music can affect you. It's not just about the harmonic or melodic information. It can be the textural element, or how the sonics integrate with the sound design of the film.
What’s your musical background and education?
My parents are avid music lovers. My dad is into jazz and rock, and my mom listens to classical music. As a kid, I was interested in heavy metal, so I wanted to play electric guitar, but my parents made me study classical guitar first. Then I got into bass guitar, and then upright bass, because I was listening to those old jazz records. I decided to study classical music, which was how I got into more orchestral music, and then I discovered electronic music as a way to create music outside the limit of my instrument. I realised I'm more interested in composing than performing other people's music. I started studying electroacoustic composition and literally put the bass in the corner. A couple years later, I felt that I needed to re-approach it without the baggage of the practising years. I wanted to be surprised by it again. I did that by exploring hidden sounds outside of its dynamic range, revealing its physicality. Hearing the horsehair bow friction against the metal string, or the metal string wobbling against the wooden thread board, or the sound of your flesh on the finger. Working with such quiet sounds and textures, you really need to push your analogue recording equipment, which starts to reveal its behaviour as well. All of those hidden sounds create a hybrid picture, and that’s what I captured on Études, the album that ended up with Jóhann [Jóhannsson].
Is that a usual way to get involved with film scores – people ask you because they've heard other work you did?
Composers often get approached because their artist albums end up at either a director or a producer or a music supervisor. Nowadays I also have a film agent that pursues specific projects. But I see my artistic practice and my film composition as connected. I'll make an album that will influence my sound in a score, and while working on a score, I might find a technique that will influence my next album. The artistic practice forces you to have a specific voice, and then you are being hired because of that voice. It’s all one body of work to me.
I’d imagine the director of the film will give you a brief on the music. How much influence do you really have as a composer?
It’s a constant back-and-forth conversation with the director, so it’s important to understand each other's language and develop cohesive vocabulary. Essentially, the director has the specific vision, and [as a composer], you're there to assist, provide and amplify that vision. But it also means to surprise them, to bring yourself to the table, and to create something new.
Do you get to see the film or single scenes before starting to compose?
That depends. Some projects you start early, even before shootings. Others you join late, and there’s already a rough cut with temporary music. I like scoring to picture, because I feel that way you get the most control over the timing. I like to be influenced by the actors’ performance and the moods of the scenes. Other composers can write ideas based on just the story. They usually work with a music editor that helps them rearrange the piece later. But even if you score to picture, the cut can still be changed, and if seven seconds are being cut from a scene, your whole timing and arrangement changes; the rhythmic logic changes. It’s important to be reactive and mentally flexible. You need to be able to quickly let go and evolve with the changes.
When would you normally do orchestral recordings?
That happens quite late, because you wouldn't want to make changes after the recordings, which tend to eat up a lot of the film music budget. Nowadays you create demos with tools and sample libraries, in order to mock up the orchestral pieces. Back in the days, people did not have access to realistic-sounding mock-ups. Composers would play their ideas on a piano, and they would say, this is what the woodwinds will do, and this is what the strings will do. These days, directors are used to hearing high quality mock-ups. The technology is getting really good. That changes the way we compose as well – these days, I only send mock-up elements that I’d be happy with if they stick, because directors might always keep certain temporary elements in the piece.
Would you be interested in live scoring as well?
I definitely think it’s closing the circle, going back to the origin of film music. This is how Miles Davis essentially made the score for “Ascenseur à L'échafaud”: They improvised to the film in the studio. Today we compose music on the computer, and there is this weird dissonance – I can make a two-hour ambient drone piece in two minutes, and I can work on a 32nd section of a piece for a month. You tend to have so many different versions in that process of mocking up and orchestrating and recording and mixing, that you can easily lose contact with the duration of the material itself. I think that live-scoring can bring back the more playful, joyful, immediate, authentic response to the story – the film itself.