“Do you feel like you never stop talking about Drive?” I ask Cliff Martinez, as I open my notebook full of questions about Drive, arguably my favourite film of all time. “You never hear the words ‘hit’ and ‘soundtrack’ together,” he replied with a smile. “But Drive is the exception. Film music is not that popular… but this one is.”
Read the full article at express.co.uk
Netflix announced today that Cliff Martinez (Traffic, Contagion, Solaris, Game Night), Peter Peter (Antboy, Over the Edge) and Julian Winding are composing the original music for the upcoming Danish Netflix neo-noir series Copenhagen Cowboy.
Legendary composer Cliff Martinez talks about his score for Hotel Artemis; touches upon his work on Too Old To Die Young; elaborates on his Drive score; and shows how his craft has changed over the years, among other things.
Read the full interview by Aaron Vehlinggo at vehlinggo.com
In a stylized, oft-poetic way, Demon portrays the competitive grind and sheer artifice of the modelling world, and probably Los Angeles as a whole to an extent. The emotions are intense and massive, even in the most sedated scenes. Martinez does an excellent job of using throbbing synthesizers, scattered guitar expressions, pulsating drum machines, and ambient textures to convey this.
However, this time around Martinez works less like a counterpoint to Refn than he has in the past, when he would have tempered ostentatious visuals that seemed to call for compositions as equally stylized. (Think of Drive – the infamous elevator scene has a delicate and crystalline ambient love theme that counters the crunch of violence between The Driver and a would-be assailant.) While Demon certainly has shades of this, more than ever in their three-picture-run-so-far Martinez plays the role of amplifying Refn’s bombast.
Read the full review
The Neon Demon actress, director, and composer exorcise the film’s themes.
A former drummer for Red Hot Chili Peppers, Captain Beefheart, and Lydia Lunch, the 62-year-old composer initially broke into film after scoring Steven Soderbergh’s 1989 breakthrough indie hit, sex, lies, and videotape, a partnership that’s continued ever since and ultimately led to his latest ventures with Refn.
The Neon Demon marks their third collaboration together — fourth, if you count Liv Corfixen’s My Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn — and Martinez’s compositions have certainly added a flavorful touch to Refn’s stoic ouevre. In a way, each score serves as a ghostly narrator, haunting the filmmaker’s trademark long shots with an ambient glaze that’s meditative and comforting.
Read the full article and interview by Michael Roffman at Consequence of Sound
Jóhann Jóhannsson, Joseph Trapanese, Cliff Martinez i Łukasz Targosz gośćmi specjalnymi piątkowego wieczoru w Centrum Kongresowym ICE Kraków
„Partytura dronowa jest może trudna do zdefiniowania, ale ma przed sobą wielką przyszłość pod warunkiem, że zostanie połączona z tradycyjnymi elementami muzyki, takimi jak wyrazista melodia czy klarowna rytmika” – uważa Łukasz Targosz, jeden z bohaterów piątkowego wieczoru w Centrum Kongresowym ICE Kraków. Jego muzyka do serialu HBO „Pakt” i dramatu Patryka Vegi „Pitbull” otworzyła wczoraj uroczystą galę „alterFMF: Drone Sounds”.
My absolute highlight of this movie was the soundtrack by Cliff Martinez. It’s a complete electronic and Synthesizer dominant soundtrack. If you like electronics soundtrack with a lot of Synthesizer sounds, you will like it for sure. If you watch now this very special “neon” design of the movie, so the sounds are perfectly for it. This make the movie special: electronic sounds and this very strange images.
So what I can say in summary: It’s a very strange movie, with some excellent actors and a perfect electronic soundtrack. This movie polarise a lot because they are some very critical scenes inside. If you like more alternative movies, maybe check out it.
Check out also this Youtube video about one track from the soundtrack. (minute 2:01 begins the Synthesizer dream for me)
Posted by Synth Anatomy
Cliff Martinez, the composer who left his mark on Nicolas Windin Refn’s breakthrough film Drive (and more recently TV’s The Knick), is working together with the acclaimed director again on the upcoming film THE NEON DEMON. Their third collaboration together (the other being 2013’s Only God Forgives), the soundtrack will be released via Milan Records both digitally and on CD June 24, 2016, along with a double vinyl release coming July 1st. In addition to the score, the album release also features the original track “Waving Goodbye” performed by Sia. Today Consequence of Sound premieres the first piece of music from the film — Cliff’s unforgettable, dark-disco leaning theme “Neon Demon”.
Listen and read more at SOUNDWORKS COLLECTION
Is it possible for electronic music to be an appropriate soundtrack for the show, which action is set in early XXth century New York? Director Steven Soderbergh and composer Cliff Martinez for the second year already successfully prove that it can. The main themes from the series The Knick, produced by Cinemax could be heard on the 30th of May 2015 during the International TV Series Gala within the 8th Krakow Film Music Festival.
Il est l’auteur privilégié des bandes originales de Steven Soderbergh, pour lequel il a composé les musiques de Traffic, de Wicked, ou encore de Sexe, Mensonges et Vidéo. Cliff Martinez est à l’honneur dans Cinéma Song.
Ancien batteur des Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cliff Martinez débute sa carrière de compositeur de musique de film en 1989, avec Sexe, Mensonges et Vidéo de Steven Soderbergh. Aujourd’hui âgé de 61 ans, il compte plus d’une trentaine de bandes originales à son actif. Thierry Jousse a rencontré le compositeur, et livre dans ce Cinema Song son entretien.
Radio France Musique Podcasts – Une Soiree avec Cliff Martinez
The director and composer behind Drive talk about karaoke, the beauty of camp, and their polarizing new film, Only God Forgives, starring Ryan Gosling.
A few hours after my conversation with Refn, I ask Cliff Martinez, who composed Only God Forgives’ sparse, droning score, what he thought of the film after seeing it for the first time. “Nicolas called me right after I finished watching it,” the 59-year-old former Red Hot Chili Peppers and Captain Beefheart drummer laughs, with a hint of unease. “He seems to take pride in not listening to anybody, but he’s always all over you, like, ‘What’d you think?’ So I said, ‘Where did all the dialogue go?’ Nicolas’ answer was, ‘I never shoot everything on the page. If I did, there’d be no element of surprise, and where’s the fun in that?'” Refn then asked Martinez about one of Only God Forgives’ most graphic scenes, in which (spoiler alert) Julian plunges his hand into his murdered mother’s open stomach wound, apropos of nothing. “I told him it was really weird,” remembers Martinez. “He said, ‘What do you think it means?’ I said, ‘If you think it’s important that it means something, you might want to tell me.’ He never did.”
See the full interview at Pitchfork.com
