J. Ralph and musician friends sing the sound of autism in 'Wretches & Jabberers' album

 
One of the most immediately striking elements of Gerardine Wurzburg’s autism documentary “Wretches & Jabberers” is the exceptionally poetic terms many of the subjects of her film come up with to express themselves.

That was readily apparent to J. Ralph, the composer of the film’s original score and songs, which surface in physical form Tuesday on a CD featuring performances by a diverse group of rock, pop, alternative and folk musicians, including Norah Jones, Ben Harper, Scarlett Johansson, Antony Hegarty, Judy Collins, Devendra Banhart, Lila Downs, Nic Jones and Martin Carthy.

For the score itself, “I wanted to use human voices for obvious reasons,” said Ralph, whose previous scored films won back-to-back best documentary Academy Awards in 2009 and 2010: James Marsh’s “Man on Wire,” the story of French aerialist Philippe Petit, and “The Cove,” Louie Psihoyos’ exposé on the capture and killing of dolphins.

Guitarist Bill Frisell to play original scores for films of Buster Keaton, Boris Karloff at UCLA Live!

Guitarist Bill Frisell is nothing if not flexible. In the last month alone he’s been a virtual chameleon, having appeared last month at the Grammy Museum as part of the Majestic Silver Strings, roots musician Buddy Miller’s project interpreting new and vintage country songs, playing across Europe with his Disfarmer Project musical collective, then settling in for a two-week residency at the Village Vanguard in New York with his Beautiful Dreamers ensemble.

And then there’s the pair of gigs he’s doing Saturday at UCLA, where he’ll provide live accompaniment to three shorts by silent-film comedian Buster Keaton as well as a restored and psychedelically transformed '30s horror film.

For the UCLA Live! performances, the Bill Frisell Trio, also including bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen, will, for a 2 p.m. family matinee, play music that Frisell wrote almost two decades ago for Keaton’s 1920s comedies “One Week,” “The High Sigh” and “Go West.”  In the evening they’ll perform the Keaton scores again along with music for Bill Morrison’s “The Mesmerist” plus other music to accompany a display of illustrations by Seattle artist Jim Woodring.

Frisell created the music for the Keaton films in the early 1990s and has given select performances with screenings of those films since then -- but never in or near Hollywood, where the writer-director-performer known as the Great Stone Face did so much of his film work.

Trent Reznor on finding the right notes for the 'Social Network' score: 'I saw a story about a guy who needs to prove himself'

There was no shortage of critical accolades heaped upon the score to "The Social Network," yet the work was far from conventional. In other words, the composition from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, which is heavy on electronic atmospheres and forgoes the use of an orchestra, was not typical Academy Awards fare. 

Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails fame, and his frequent collaborator Ross stood out in an Oscar field that contained film composer veterans. Among the pair's competitors Sunday night at the Academy Awards were Hans Zimmer, whose booming work in "Inception" was hard to ignore; A.R. Rahman, who brought a Western-leaning rock 'n' roll slickness to "127 Hours"; and Alexandre Desplat, who used an orchestra with minimalist grace in "The King's Speech." 

Once an early favorite for best picture, David Fincher's legal drama "The Social Network," which takes its inspiration from the battle over Facebook and focuses on the company's enigmatic young leader Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), is action-less and heavy on the dialogue.

Reznor and Ross spoke with Pop & Hiss about composing the music for the film in late 2010. Now that the pair are Oscar winners ("To be standing up here in this company is humbling and flattering beyond words," Reznor said from the stage), Pop & Hiss presents the full, unedited transcript of the interview.

'They needed some Mexicans in there': Pop & Hiss premieres the Los Lobos theme to 'Rango'

By the time Los Lobos were brought in to contribute music to "Rango," band principal David Hidalgo estimates that there were already somewhere between 12 and 20 takes at the theme to Gore Verbinski's spaghetti western-like animated feature. It was composer Hans Zimmer, said Hidalgo, who admitted defeat at trying to craft authentic mariachi music. 

"They could do it on their own, but it sounded funny," Hidalgo told Pop & Hiss. "It didn’t sound authentic. So they needed some Mexicans in there. That doesn’t sound kosher and it doesn’t sound right to say it that way, but in a way it is. You need someone who knows this music, someone to play it properly and get the real effect. That’s why they called us in."

Hidalgo hasn't seen how the band's music is used in the film -- a couple of storyboards and some rough scenes were all the band has been shown -- but the act's "Rango" theme will no doubt play a pivotal role, and act as an anchor to the soundtrack. Paramount Pictures' "Rango," about a Johnny Depp-voiced chameleon having an identity crisis, and who suddenly finds himself in a desert town with all the action of the Wild West, is the first animated feature from "Pirates of the Caribbean" director Verbinski.

"Rango" the film will be unveiled to the public on March 4, and "Rango" the song makes its debut below. Local label Anti- will release the soundtrack digitally on March 1, with a CD version available in stores on March 15.

Los Lobos - Rango Theme Song by antirecords

Los Lobos' "Rango" references Ennio Morricone and "Rawhide" in sound but is a 3 1/2-minute tale that envisions the once scrappy and hapless Rango as something of an American myth. Shown images of the desert-worn Rango, Hidalgo said he immediately went to a mariachi theme, although he noted Los Lobos cut multiple takes, including one with more of a surf-rock feel. 

"You see the film, and you see he’s kind of scrungy and old," said Hidalgo. "He’s worn out, older, lives in the desert. He’s dusty and dirty. So there’s the mariachi. Then you have to make that rough a little bit, as he’s been out there for years. We had to kind of get in character. They would say, ‘Can you make it more ethnic sounding?’ They didn’t want to say, ‘Sing it like a Mexican.’ I told them not to worry, it will come out that way."

The score for 'The Social Network' came with rules, says Trent Reznor. Now how about tour dates?

For his first-ever film score, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame was eager to have a bevy of new toys at his disposal. Perhaps a string section? Perhaps a full orchestral suite? Yet "The Social Network" director David Fincher put an instant end to such film music tropes.

"We got the idea from David that he wanted something that was not orchestral and not traditional," Reznor said recently. "He referenced 'Blade Runner' and Tangerine Dream. He mentioned sounds that were a synthetic landscape of sorts. Then we just spent a couple weeks with no picture and no input and were thinking of how we could create a world of sound."

Reznor, working with frequent collaborator Atticus Ross, will vie with film composer heavyweights such as Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman and A.R. Rahman, among others, for best original score at this Sunday's Golden Globes. It's illustrious company for Reznor's first film (Ross last worked on the film "The Book of Eli"), and the music of "The Social Network" couldn't be more atypical than the kind of orchestrations awards voters typically fawn over.

It's taut, largely digital, and minimalistic in its mournfulness, decorated occasionally with a piano. Whereas electronic maestros Daft Punk brought enough orchestral grandiosity to their "Tron: Legacy" score to stage a Fourth of July fireworks celebration, Reznor and Ross went the opposite route. Instead of adding to their synth-driven repertoire, the pair were taking away.

"We spent time in advance setting up rules," Reznor said. "If we were working orchestrally, we’d have these sounds and this kind of voicing to us. We adapted that to a world of modular synthesizers and an acoustic piano, and a general aesthetic of X,Y and Z."

Soundtrack review: 'Country Strong'

So how does Gwyneth Paltrow sound with a Nashville makeover? That’s likely the first and most obvious question when it comes to the soundtrack to tearjerker “Country Strong.” On a 13-track album with a number of Nashville stars, be it Faith Hill or A-list songwriters such as Tom Douglas and Hillary Lindsey, Paltrow is the clear outsider.

Yet all’s well. When it comes to carrying a tune, Paltrow is on par — and heck, even better — than a number of blond-haired country starlets. Whether that says more about the talents of the actress or the quality of Nashville pop would make for another debate, but she’s go-getter tough on “Country Strong,” punctuating the last word with an ever-so-slight snarl, and she sounds even better hushed and wounded on “Coming Home.” If she’s not the next Reba McEntire, Paltrow could certainly hold her own with a Hillary Scott.

The rest of the soundtrack is a capable snapshot of what could pass for above-average country pop in 2010. Sara Evans has a pretty yet nondescript ballad, and likewise Hill plays it safe. Better is Ronnie Dunn, who faithfully tackles the classic drinking ode “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Double),” and Lee Ann Womack, who needs little more than a fiddle to slay on “Liars Lie.”

— Todd Martens

 

"Country Strong”
Various Artists
Sony Music Entertainment
Two stars (Out of four)

Soundtrack review: A.R. Rahman's '127 Hours'

In his last movie, “Slumdog Millionaire,” director Danny Boyle showed a sophisticated sense of how music and image can intertwine and intensify each other. With his latest, “127 Hours,” he proves his skill again, reenlisting composer A.R. Rahman, who won two Academy Awards for his racing, kinetic score to Boyle’s violent fairy tale set in Mumbai, India.

The majority of “127 Hours” takes place in a claustrophobic canyon in Utah, where James Franco’s character, mountain climber Aron Ralston, is trapped with a boulder pinned on his arm, left to little devices but to examine his life. The music reflects the dual notions of the movie: an introspective mood fraught with anxiety and the same high-energy lust for experience that fired the engine of “Slumdog Millionaire.”

About half of the soundtrack is devoted to original music from Rahman, especially his three “Liberation” explorations — at turns tense, wondrous and hallucinatory with parched guitars. But the secondary music beautifully captures the tone too. Sigur Ros’ “Festival” is a nine-minute flight that starts as a hushed prayer and builds to an exalted soar.

— Margaret Wappler

 

A.R. Rahman
“127 Hours”
Interscope Records
Three and a half stars (Out of four)

Soundtrack review: Carter Burwell's 'True Grit'

Carter Burwell’s long been a Coen brothers collaborator, and his evocative, moody and subtly atmospheric scores for the enigmatic filmmakers have essentially been ignored by Oscar voters. The same fate awaits “True Grit,” which has already been disqualified for Oscar contention, as portions of Burwell’s work contain re-interpretations of 19th century Protestant hymns.

A shame, as Burwell’s work on “True Grit” is some of his grandest to date. Eschewing the traditional brassy triumphs that mark many a western score, Burwell opts to focus instead on lovely, albeit slightly sorrowful, piano arrangements. It allows for “True Grit” to work equally well for big-screen vistas and solitary contemplation.

Though the Nonesuch score is largely a collection of orchestral fragments, it’s not a jolting set. The temper is downbeat, a musical universe in which a slight pat of a tom-tom drum is menacing. Yet even at its most damning, Burwell casually circles back to strings that provide an emotional lift and a piano that longs to be adorned with a symphony. It’s music for after the adventure, when reflection and loss play a larger role.

— Todd Martens

Carter Burwell
“True Grit”
Nonesuch
Three stars

'Inception' score, now with barking dogs, flushed toilets; Hans Zimmer talks iPhone app, gets pestered on 'Dark Knight Rises'

Hans Zimmer scored one of the biggest films of the year in "Inception." His 2011 slate includes "Rango," a highly anticipated animated feature from Gore Verbinski and Industrial Light & Magic. He's already begun exchanging ideas with director Christopher Nolan for the conclusion of the filmmaker's Batman saga, "The Dark Knight Rises." 

Yet the only thing Zimmer really wants to discuss is an iPhone app. In an interview set up to chat about the award-season chances of "Inception" for The Times' Envelope, Zimmer was eager to postpone the matter at hand. "There's an in-built German disdain," Zimmer said of Oscar season. "There goes art." 

Instead, Zimmer encouraged this reporter to play with one of his recent musical acquisitions, a guitar fashioned out of old dynamite boxes. It was a gift, Zimmer said, from Verbinski. When the musical session was done, Zimmer handed over his iPhone. Zimmer's Santa Monica-based Remote Control Productions, working with technology from developer RjDj, has released a free iPhone app, one that boasts so-called augmented sound. In short, one's surroundings are folded into Zimmer's score, with the intent to create a dream-like sensation while walking around.

"It scores the room," Zimmer said. "I’m not kidding. It takes a second. Just to explain the principal: It’s not just a phone, it’s a clock. It knows what time it is. It knows where you are, due to whatever you call the direction-finding doodad. For instance, at 3 p.m. in the afternoon, if you’re in Mombasa, you can hear the track entitled ‘Mombasa.’ " 

So how did a Nick Cave song end up in 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 1'?

Terms such as "Quidditch" and "Muggles" have essentially become part of everyday lexicon due to the "Harry Potter" series. Yet the weirdest and most unexpected addition to the world-o-Potter, one with magic schools, talking photos and violent trees, may very well be something as simple as a song.

Midway through "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 1," the characters Harry Potter and Hermione Granger share a dance. The music for the movement comes from an artist whose work has been steeped in lechery, sin and redemption, characteristics not necessarily associated with a holiday-season family blockbuster. Yet there was "O Children," from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, playing a dominant role, with Cave's baritone of heartache at the fore.

How and why music supervisor Matt Biffa came to Cave's "O Children" is relatively simple, and no doubt similar to how many have discovered Cave's fire-and-brimstone rock and darkly haunting ballads: A breakup.   

"I was separating from my wife at the time," Biffa said Tuesday from his London home. "I came across ‘O Children’ in 2004 and I hoarded it. I knew it would be a great song for something, but I didn’t know what. I had forgotten all about it and started listening to it because I was splitting up from my wife. I was really terrified that we were going to hurt our little boys, who were 1 and 3 at the time. So it was like a love letter to my kids."

Lyrically, "O Children," which is featured on the 2004 album "Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus," largely plays out like a song of atonement. The moment it comes in "Deathly Hallows" is one in which Harry and Hermione are struggling to carry on with the quest, looking for some sort of strength to emerge from their friendship. Cave's songs have an ability to walk a line between numerous emotions, and cuts such as "Into My Arms" could work equally well at a wedding or a funeral. 

"Exactly," said Biffa. "There was something really uplifting about that 'O Children,' with lyrics like 'rejoice / lift up your voice,’ and all that stuff. I was thinking of my kids. The lyrics are saying, ‘Forgive us for what we’ve done.’ It started out as a bit of fun, but then there’s weeping. It was horribly on the nose for me. At the same time, it was giving me hope. It’s not the same as writing a song for my children, but this is the closest I can get." 

Selling it to director David Yates wasn't much of challenge, although the filmmaker still had his music supervisor jump through numerous hoops. Remembered Biffa, "David called and said, ‘I think this song is just right, but is there anything better?’"