Sound and moving image association

Before I became interested in visual arts, I was interested in audio, and still am. I find music to be a greater part of my life than film or most other activities. This is why I thought it would be great to do a little post about influential and inspirational soundtracks to films and audio environments.

I love classical music, one of my favorite still living composers is Zbigniew Preisner, he is well known for composing the soundtrack to The Double Life of Véronique (1991) and many other films.
His website contains a plethora of useful information, this quote can only partially describe why I admire him so much:
"I don't like going back and doing what I've already done, but I had to know whether my music 'sounded' as good without a film accompanying it. Did it stand up on its own two feet when removed from its cinematic context? To check this, I chose the Wieliczka salt mine, near Krakow: a secret, mysterious magical place 130 metres below ground. A unique atmosphere with exceptional acoustics.
The risk was great though: a subterranean symphony orchestra connected by 400 metres of cables to technical equipment on the ground above. Anything could have happened."

Weblink: www.preisner.com


When looking for soundtracks for my film I always first check through my archive of personal home-made sounds and compositions, even when I cannot find anything suitable I will still try to make my own soundtrack if I have the time. But when I don't, and the project is clearly not going to be publicized to any significant degree, I have the best time looking for suitable artists.

For my 16mm found footage project I chose to use a soundtrack which would suit the rough fast paced appearance of the footage, since most frames were different, the visual appearance would fluctuate and distort at great speed. This is why I chose a track from the Darkmatter Soundsystem compilation (link), a style of electronic music which is extreme to say the least, but not exactly innovative in my eyes. The track I chose in particular was perfect because of its generic hard-acid feel, a comedic notion in my eyes which accompanied the comedic clip in my animation perfectly once I had synchronized the movements.













Moving on,
I am intrigued by the aspect of using one's surroundings as a means of amplification and natural resonance. An artist known as Lustmord (site) specializes in creating soundscapes with dark moods and amazing resonance, he has recorded work in various locations, including vast caves and other acoustically unique locations. To listen to some of his work, you can go here: www.last.fm/music/Lustmord

But to me, Lustmord is just the start, since finding out about his work I have discovered many more amazing artists with styles combining doom-metal and sludge genres. One of my most favorite artists in this area are Halo, their album is free to download from embryo.antisound.net here