Weekly Recommendations – w/e 22nd March 2024: Sound of Freedom, & Mort d’un Berger

Continuing with our catch-up of weekly recommended scores, here’s a round-up of scores that caught my attention over the week ending, 22nd March 2024.

Sound of Freedom (2023) – Javier Navarrete (Sony Classical)

Sound of Freedom (dir. Alejandro Monteverde) is a story of how a former homeland security agent, who quits his job, travels into the jungles of Colombia in an effort to save children from sex slavery. Written by Spanish composer Javier Navarrete, the music for Sound of Freedom is a sombre orchestral score that utilises additional elements such as guitar (acoustic and electric) and a children’s choir, and powerful string solos to establish a musical environment that is complimentary to the film’s challenging topic. The score does veer into a more dissonant, atmospheric tone in places but it’s the strong grave quality of Navarrete’s music that lingers.

11th (2023) Reel Music Awards – The Nominations

The nominations for the 11th (2023) Reel Music Awards announced

At last! Here are Reel Music’s shortlists of nominations for the 11th Reel Music Awards. These shortlists feature music from projects of various genres released in 2023 which we believe are worth highlighting for praise. Our main goal is to celebrate a selection of music that we particularly enjoyed over the past 12 months or so. We are sure that most people will be familiar with a lot of our selections but we hope that there are a few that are a little less well-known that will be come favourites. Continuing the trends of previous years, the majority of titles highlighted are European or further afield titles rather than the “mainstream”.

We will post our personal favourites and other notable in this nominations post and then single out an overall favourite score of the year (we do not propose that our selections are “the best”) in a follow-up post. As always, any mistakes or inaccurate information are of our own hand and we apologise in advance!

So, peruse the shortlists below and see if they agree with your own favourites from 2023. We will announce our winners as soon as they are ready.

Weekly Recommendations – w/e 15th March 2024: The American Society of Magical Negroes, & El Maddah 4: Ostoret El Awda

Continuing with our catch-up of weekly recommended scores, here’s a round-up of scores that caught my attention over the week ending, 15th March 2024.

The American Society of Magical Negroes (2024) – Michael Abels (Back Lot Music)

In The American Society of Magical Negroes (dir. Kobi Libii), a satirical comedy-drama feature, a young man is recruited into a Harry Potter-style secret society. The society is tasked with calming the anxieties of white angst, preventing them from directing their frustrations towards African Americans. After an excellent orchestral main titles opening, which establishes the score’s main theme and a magical setting for both the movie and score, composer Michael Abels does a good job of creating a strong dramatic narrative. It’s a fun score – meaning the music is not overly dramatic rather than being comedic – with echoes of Thomas Newman with the use of percussion. There are moments where the music does turn more dramatic but, overall, it’s a solid listen.

2023 Reel Music Awards – Scores for Consideration

The 2023 Reel Music Award – “Scores for Consideration”

Reel Music publishes the list of scores for consideration* for the 11th (2023) Reel Music Awards. My music-listening experience for the various media types has been typical of other years. And, again, as well as there being some excellent music being written by “established”composers I have been encouraged by the work done by lesser-known composers who keep the various industries going with the music they have written for the increasing number of projects that require musical support.

Weekly Recommendations – w/e 8th March 2024: La Recua, Sayonara Maestro: Chichi to Watashi no Appassionato, & Cabrini

Continuing with our catch-up of weekly recommended scores, here’s a round-up of scores that caught my attention over the week ending, 8th March 2024.

La Recua (2021) – Alejandro Guerrero (Alejandro Guerrero)

La Recua: The Mule Pack Train (dir. Trudi Angeli, Darío Higuera Meza) is a feature documentary following the herding of a pack-train of donkeys on a 200 mile re-enactment over an old-time merchant route. Mexican composer Alejandro Guerrero taps into his training in classical guitar with a wonderfully evocative score that prominently features solo classical guitar (with perhaps the occasional augmentation with additional acoustic guitars). There’s a beauty and serenity to each of the album’s twenty tracks, and Guerrero’s music provides a entry to a listening experience that will lift the spirits of every listener.

Weekly Recommendations – w/e 1st March 2024: Sexpectations, & Siegebreaker

Continuing with our catch-up of weekly recommended scores, here’s a round-up of scores that caught my attention over the week ending, 1st March 2024.

Sexpectations (2023) – John Piscitello (John Piscitello)

Sexpectations (dir. Kevin Good) is a romantic comedy TV show that follows an aspiring romance novelist and her attempts to lose her virginity as research for her novel. The show satires numerous classic Hollywood romantic tropes, and US composer John Piscitello’s approach is a wonderful homage to romantic musical devices from classical music and Golden Age film music. Sweeping romantic strings and dramatic choral passages mix with sultry jazz and jaunty woodwinds creating an album that frequently brings smiles of joy and recognition. The listening experience does suffer a little from the short running times on tracks – 18 tracks for a 20 minute album – but that’s a minor quibble.

Weekly Recommendations – w/e 23rd February 2024: Dieci Minuti, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Harbor, & Pentagram Girl

Continuing with our catch-up of weekly recommended scores, here’s a round-up of scores that caught my attention over the week ending, 23rd February 2024.

Dieci Minuti (2024) – Andrea Farri (Creazioni Artistiche Musicali C.A.M.)

The Italian drama Dieci Minuti (dir. Maria Sole Tognazzi) follows a woman who is going through a difficult period in her life. In an effort to help her, her psychotherapist gives her an exercise to try: for just ten minutes every day do something she has never done before. Andrea Farri’s music gets to the heart of the protagonist’s psychological state with a predominantly slow-tempo score grounded in a low register string ensemble. This forms a backdrop for strong and evocative string solos. There’s the promise of light at the end of the (psychological) tunnel as the closing track quickens the tempo and the outlook of the strings is altogether more brighter.

Weekly Recommendations – w/e 16th February 2024: Empire Queen: The Golden Age of Magic, & I diafanoidi vengono de Marte

Continuing with our catch-up of weekly recommended scores, here’s another round-up of scores that caught my attention over the week ending, 16th February 2024.

Empire Queen: The Golden Age of Magic (2024) – Nicolás Repetto (MovieScore Media)

Empire Queen: The Golden Age of Magic (dirs. Christopher Dane Owens, Jason Schulz) is a fantasy action-adventure comedy. Magic is forbidden in the kingdom, and a group of adventurers set out on a dangerous quest to overthrow an evil queen and restore magic for everyone. Argentinian-American composer Nicolás Repetto’s score harkens back to the epic orchestral fantasy adventure scoring of the likes of John Williams. Thematic in nature, Repetto’s music shifts effortless between various musical genres: swashbuckling adventure, lyrically romantic, mischievous. With a running time of over 2 hours, the music for Empire Queen: The Golden Age of Magic carries the listener on a magical, exciting journey that never lets up.

Weekly Recommendations – w/e 9th February 2024: Flyways: The Untold Story of Migratory Shore Birds, Il Pianeta Errante, Faruk, & Kôtei no inai hachigatsu/August Without The Emperor

Continuing with our catch-up of weekly recommended scores, here’s another round-up of scores that caught my attention over the week ending, 9th February 2024.

Flyways: The Untold Journey of Migratory Shore Birds (2023) – Cezary Skubiszewski (RealityBytes)

The subject of the Australian feature documentary Flyways: The Untold Journey of Migratory Shore Birds (dir. Randall Wood) is bird migration and the negative effects of climate change on their breeding and feeding sites. There’s a delicacy about Polish-born Australian composer Cezary Skubiszewski’s score that makes the album a very appealing listen. Written for a relatively small ensemble, the composer uses various combinations of instruments in interesting ways, many of the musical ideas revolving around a three-note motif inspired by the composer’s own experience of bird song. A nice alternative to the large orchestral scores frequently written for natural world documentaries, Skubiszewski’s music reflects the birds that fly vast distances during their migrations.

Weekly Recommendations – w/e 2nd February 2024: Last Epoch, & Green Border

Continuing with our catch-up of weekly recommended scores, here’s another round-up of scores that caught my attention over the week ending, 2nd February 2024.

Last Epoch (2023) – Erik Desiderio (Laced Records)

Last Epoch (dev. Eleventh Hour Games) is an early access time travel action role-playing game. The player must cleanse the world of corruption, defeat legions of the undead, restore the world, and its humanity. Composer Erik Desiderio worked for over 2 years on this project, and I think that this shows in the quality of the score he was written. Thematic in nature (music that is modified throughout the score depending on the needs of the game), a lot of the music establishes mood and feeling. And it’s all done in a very listenable way. Desiderio’s music is a mix of orchestra, interesting solo instruments (many of which appear to have been warped to create unusual sounds), and lovely ethereal female voices. There’s a definite darkening of the score in the latter tracks that makes the 80+ minute album feel like the listener is on a musical journal. But it’s the composer’s choice of instrumentation throughout Last Epoch that lingers.