Posts tagged music
[Two Steps from Hell - Heart of Courage]
How do you create a movie trailer that makes everyone go, “ooooooh” in 10 easy steps?
1) Early morning establishing shot of peaceful landscape, city, or planet.
2) Deep-voiced explanation of major plot points by film’s most fatherly character OR sexiest female.
3) Slow intimate tracking shot of worried-looking hero, anti-hero, or sympathetic villain, usually saying “I just can’t do it.”
4) Meaningful stares between male protagonists.
5) Tragic fire, preferably with smoke billowing heroically behind someone who stands up slowly and looks into the middle distance.
6) Somebody saying “Oh my God,” in a completely non-ironic voice.
7) At least a city block worth of soldiers, horses, cars, trains, planes, spaceships or expensive buildings being destroyed in slow motion.
8) The hero proudly cries, “Never mind what I said earlier, I totally got this.”
9) Walking away from explosions without looking at them.
But most importantly…
10) Two Steps From Hell
Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil & Tom Tykwer - Meeting Laura
YES. Music and Death and Taxes are very closely linked, and have been since day one. In fact I did a post not to long ago on this very subject. It excludes most of the religious music that I also listen to while working, most notably the Missa Papae Marcelli, Allegri’s Miserere and the works of Hildegard von Bingen and Arvo Pärt, who was influenced by that sort of sound, and is also frequently in my ears. His Magnificat and Berliner Messe are just chilling.
The works of Vaughan Williams have been a huge influence, especially his Dona Nobis Pacem, which I played in high school if you can believe that. It’s somewhat overblown music, but it interested me in Walt Whitman and in huge, blustery themes. Philip Glass is also a biggie for me, notably the opening of Koyaanisqatsi (and the rest of it, of course)
I’m also a big fan of unusual sounds while I’m thinking and working - I love overtone singing and glass instruments like the water organ or crystal bachet. Frédéric Bousquet (musician, not swimmer) has a great album of experimental music featuring some otherworldly instruments that I love. I’ve also posted about Chirgilchin several times; I’m crazy for them.
Hans Zimmer - Dream is Collapsing
This soundtrack is the reason I can’t sleep most nights. As someone with a lot of weird dream experiences under my belt, I was fairly nonplussed by Inception: the film. But Inception: the soundtrack… That’s something else entirely.
Jack White - Sixteen Saltines
The Seatbelts - Rush
Old Crow Medicine Show - Crazy Eyes
I walked the longest mile
For the darkest while
And it killed my heart
To see my people down
They call me crazy eyes
I have a troubled mind
And a cardboard sign
And a jug of wine
But I’ll be alright
if I can make it through the night
The Seatbelts - Powder
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Carries On
The Avett Brothers - Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise
There was a dream
One day I could see it
Like a bird in a cage
I broke in and demanded
That somebody free it
La Petit Mort - Coeur de Pirate
La pluie coule sur mes tempes
La foudre chante ta descente
Blottie contre ma vie
Ton rire résonne et puis s’enfuit
Je crois qu’il est trop tard
Pour te dire que ça fait mal
Mon coeur n’est plus comme avant
Car il s’endort tout doucement
The rain runs down my temples
The lightning is singing your descent
Huddled up against my life
Your laugh resounds and then flees
I think that it’s too late
To admit to you that I’m hurting
My heart is not like it was before
Because it softly falls asleep
Goldfrapp - Human
They went searching for your body
They went looking but there’s nobody
Who smells like you
Who looks like you
You’re not human
David Bowie - Letter to Hermione
I’m not quite sure what we’re supposed to do
So I’ve been writing just for you
You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to post this. Not just this section of Strauss’ opera, but this exact recording. It’s been months of me trying different ways to get this obscure recording to convert correctly so I could share it.
AT LAST. This is the piece that defines musical frisson for me. This piece gives me full-body chills, cruel and wracking, almost to the point of blindness. This piece has kept me awake at night. This piece has haunted me for about five years, ever since the first time I saw “Elektra.”
Elektra, Op.58: “Orest!”
Richard Strauss, Birgit Nilsson, Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Sir Georg SoltiLibretto: Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Es rührt sich niemand. O lass deine Augen
mich sehn! Traumbild, mir geschenktes
Traumbild, schöner als alle Träume.
Hehres, unbegreifliches, erhabenes Gesicht,
o bleib bei mir! Lös nicht
in Luft dich auf, vergeh mir nicht, vergeh mir nicht,
es sei denn, das ich jetzt gleich
sterben muss und du dich anzeigst
und mich hollen kommst: dann sterb ich
seliger als ich gelebt.There is no one stirred. O let me
gaze upon you! Dream, gifted to me
Vision, more beautiful than any dream.
Noble, incomprehensible, sublime face,
O remain in me! Dissolve not
Away in air, do not pass away, do not Fade!
But haply cam’st thou hither, bidding me
To follow thee straightway,
To Hell? Then die I
More blessed than I lived.
Maybe this’ll get to you, maybe it won’t. But do me a favor, eh? Stick in your best headphones, close your eyes, and just listen to the first half of this.
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