Cue of the Week: Temptation

Continuing last week's theme of ethereal guitar-based pieces underscoring seduction scenes, here's a cue from the film Siren wherein lead singer Storm Fagan feels the lure of a, shall we say, devoted groupie. The trippy guitar comes courtesy of Tom Strahle, with wordless vocals by recording artist Hilary Hearty.

Temptation

Cue of the Week: The Bedroom

This week's selection the steamy bedroom music from action/suspense flick HellBent.

This scene is particularly interesting because of its eerie similarity to a moment in another film I scored, Siren. Both are ostensible seduction scenes that ultimately don't result in any seduction being accomplished. Both are somewhat ethereal in visual style, both involve same-sex couples (two men in HellBent, two women in Siren), and both, astoundingly, culminate in one party's blowing cigarette smoke into the face of the other in slow motion.

My music to both scenes was somewhat similar, though not intentionally so. Given the striking visual parallelism, I'm not surprised that I came up with similar ideas in both cases. (Part of the similarity comes from my tapping into the skills of guitarist Tom Strahle in both cues.) Next week I'll play the analogous cue from Siren.

The Bedroom

Cue of the Week: Walking

This is the main title for a suspense-thriller called Dead Line which I scored a number of years ago. Usually I'm reluctant to trot out older cues that are even partially electronically realized, since the state of the art of sampling technology moves so quickly, and older sounds quickly sound dated or fake. In this case, I think the music has aged fairly well, partially due to the phrase samples and live piano.

I'd like to say that the piano was "prepared" to make it especially creepy-sounding, but the fact is that it happened to be terribly out of tune. Fortunately, this worked really well for the scene!

Walking

Big news, and Cue of the Week: Zack's Theme

We've had a few weeks of air silence here at MikeMusicRadio.com, but quite a bit has been going on. For starters, I've been working on a new game scoring project for Bethesda. But perhaps more relevantly for the readers of this blog, my entire web site is being redesigned from scratch! In a few weeks everything will have a fresh new look, and a far better interface for playing audio. Plus, I'll be moving this blog from Blogger to the more powerful WordPress system. The designers over at Eklektika (yes, that's in Serbia) have been doing a bang-up job with the new look, and I'm very excited about sharing it with you guys and/or ladies.

In the meantime, however, I don't want to completely neglect my music posting duties! So without further ado, here's a cue from the film Against Time. This piece introduces the piano-and-strings theme of Robert Loggia's haunted and disoriented character, Zack.

Zack's Theme

Cue of the Week: The Test

This is cheatin' music, though not in the country-western music sense. In this cue's scene, a classroom of students sneakily shares answers while their teacher's attention is elsewhere. The music is constructed on two motives: the arpeggiated figure that opens the piece, and the simple half-step interval. I particularly enjoy writing motivic music like this, where a larger form is constructed from simple pieces.

There's one music-to-picture detail here I've always wanted to share with the world: as Ean Mering's character glances at some social security numbers, a descending vibraphone line plays nine tones, one for each digit. Granted, this was so subtle an effect that it passed beneath just about everyone's radar. (Including my own - I almost never notice it when I watch the film.)

The Test

Cue of the Week: Truth Among the Fish

Every composer should have the opportunity to score a scene in an aquarium. For one thing, it's very relaxing. It also lets one look for interesting sonic colors to reflect the exotic alien visuals of the water and its exotic inhabitants.

In this case I picked muted strings, vibraphone, and bass flute to reflect both the visuals and the introspective and mysterious discussion occurring therein. (Two bass flutes, actually - but as only one was available that day, we recorded a second pass as an overdub.)

Truth Among the Fish

Cue of the Week: The Yard Sale

This cue accompanies the Scene Most Likely To Make You Grab Your Kleenex in the film Against Time. I won't divulge any details, so you'll have to watch the movie to understand the full context.

Fortunately, this is now possible! You can now purchase Against Time from its website, or even rent it on Netflix.

(Filmmakers take note: as you can see, a side benefit of working with me is a free promotional junket for your movie.)

The Yard Sale