By Matthew Deakin
When it comes to discourse on film and music, often the focus is on the music scored directly for film, leaving the music inspired by film out of the discussion. Here are five examples of artists who’ve taken inspiration from a trip to the cinema and as a result have crafted both poignant odes and alternative responses to the films they love.
Still from Carnival of Souls
1. Sufjan Stevens and Angelo de Augustine: A Beginner’s Mind (2021)
Launching our list of music inspired by film is Sufjan Stevens and Angelo de Augustin. Stevens is no stranger to the world of film; in 2017 he received a Grammy nomination for the two songs he’d written for Luca Guadadino’s Call Me by Your Name. His album A Beginner’s Mind, a collaboration with Angelo De Augustine, was written in a small cabin where the pair sought out films as their main source of inspiration with each track a response to a particular flick. Their choices were wide ranging, from Wim Wenders’ classic Wings of Desire to Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth. Their referencing is never overbearing or gimmicky, instead the pair open gateways into the worlds of those films, using the celluloid landscapes presented to them as jumping-off points, earnestly exploring the feelings conjured from the screen and imposing their own interpretations, from criticism of American foreign policy to the problematic presentation of Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.
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2.Factory floor: Music for a Film (2018)
Over the years Fritz Lang’s sci-fi masterpiece Metropolis has had its fair share of re- scores: even Giorgio Moroder had a go back in 1984. In 2017 though, it was the turn of critical darlings Factory Floor, whose version was commissioned by and debuted at the London Science Fair. Their Throbbing Gristle-esque, ‘post-industrial’ sound lends itself well to the world of Metropolis. Unlike any film score I’ve heard before, Factory Floor’s minimal yet rhythmic re-score adds a new immediacy to the film, hurtling the viewer through each scene, simultaneously heightening the intensity and mimicking the sounds of machinery, serving as a reminder to the ever-present exploitation beneath the city’s surface.
3.Miaux: Never Coming Back (2024)
Next up in our survey of music inspired by film is Miaux’s 2024 album Never Coming Back. Unlike Factory Floor’s re-score which was an exact recording of their live performance, Miaux takes themes from her musical reworking of Herk Harvey’s cult favourite Carnival of Souls, shortening and rearranging them into more songlike pieces creating a standalone album in and of itself. Replacing Gene Moore’s original organ led score with free flowing, diaphanous layers of electronic texture, Miaux’s synths seem to float between this world and the next; the ethereal space created in the opening track ‘Too much current’, too much sand has the ability to obscure the fact that these pieces were written and performed using only one synthesiser and only her two hands, a process reminiscent to that of the late Vangelis, whose sound worlds are evoked in tracks like ‘Put your soul into it a little, okay’.
4.Oliver Leith and Matt Copson: Last Days (2022)
Based on Gus Van Sandt’s 2005 film of the same name, Last Days is an opera, composed by Oliver Leith with the libretto written by Matt Copson, recounting the final days of a Kurt Cobain-like character, played by actor Agathe Rouselle in her debut opera role. Described by critics as bleak and beautiful, the sometimes lugubrious, sometimes wailing strings, courtesy of 12 Ensemble, slide and dissonantly rub in a sound akin to the fluctuation of two deliberately detuned oscillators playing in unison. This rub between Blake, the main character, and the world around her is, similarly to the strings, portrayed by two pianos, playing a unison melody with one in tune and the other out. Last Days is at times oppressive and sorrowful, yet also cathartic and sublime, adding new emotional layers to its original source material.
5.Surf Curse: Heaven Surrounds You (2019)
Films have always been a primary source of inspiration for Surf Curse’s Nick Rattigan and Jacob Rubeck. The pair have countlessly discussed how integral films are to their creative process, their songwriting process backgrounded with muted films played on VHS as one example. Their third album released under the low fi, surf punk ‘Surf Curse’ moniker Heaven Surrounds You is the pair’s most blatant example of music inspired by film, written in response to their most cherished cult films from their youth, referencing David Lynch, Ingmar Bergman, and David Cronenberg. Much like A Beginners’ Mind, these references never come across as a gimmick, the pairs love for these films really shines through in the chance to engage in a dialogue with the art they admire. In an interview taken from Flood Magazine, Nick describes how film acts as a reflection to better understand his own life, inserting himself into the minds of characters, using their perspective, and harnessing the world of the film to add an essence of ‘romance and texture’ to his own experiences.