The Knick

Cliff Martinez joins Elvis Mitchell on KCRW’s ‘The Treatment’

Film composer Cliff Martinez joins Elvis Mitchell to talk intentions and meaning of auditory accompaniment in his newest work Neon Demon.

Cliff Martinez has strong roots in rock music, having begun his career as the drummer of Red Hot Chili Peppers. But, after reflecting on his love for the soundtrack of A Fistful of Dollars, Martinez broadened his musical scope as film composer behind scores for such films and television series as Spring Breakers, Sex, Lies and Videotape and The Knick. He joins Elvis Mitchell to discuss his personal music history and the thought process behind his latest musical work on Neon Demon.

The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell on KCRW

Settling Scores: Ryan Miller interviews Cliff Martinez about the Anachronistic Score He Wrote for ‘The Knick’

The-Knick

Cliff Martinez is my hero. Well, not specifically my “only” hero, but Martinez and a handful of other Rock-Band-Dudes-Turned-Real-Deal-Composers —I’m looking at you, Danny Elfman, Mark Mothersbaugh, Jon Brion, Clint Mansell, and Hans Zimmer)— were the guys who indirectly gave me permission to put down the microphone, step off stage and start writing music to picture. Martinez is specifically inspiring in that he has created an immensely varied body of work—I mean, dude is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers!— that nonetheless is threaded with tones, textures and grooves that are singular and recognizable. By that I mean that you, as a listener, know when you are listening to “Cliff.” – by Ryan Miller

Read the full interview at DECIDER.COM

New York Times – The Knick – Victims All Around

04THEKNICK-master675“But the greatest triumph in the episode belonged to Herman’s favorite prostitute, Junia. In a scene shot in slow-motion, with only Cliff Martinez’s techno score on the soundtrack, Barrow came to Ping Wu’s house and swept away the woman whose freedom he had purchased with the graft from the construction of the new Knick. Before the hospital is even finished, it has accomplished its first successful cure.” – Mike Hale

 

‘The Knick’ Season 2, Episode 8: Victims All Around

The Knick, Cliff Martinez, Film Music Festival in Krakow 2015

 

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.

On the Score with composers Cliff Martinez and Jeff Russo

Jeff Russo and Cliff Martinez “The Knick’s” chief benefactor is Steven Soderbergh, whose daring approach has been complimented by the game-changing, alt. scoring of Martinez. He’s taken the most outré Soderbergh scoring for such soundtracks as “Sex, Lies and Videotape” and “Traffic” and placed his trippy grooves with anachronistic wander into the medical gore-filled misadventures of a drug-addicted doctor and a staff that’s full of malpractice – some of it well-intentioned. Now “The Knick” and “Fargo” strongly expand their sonic palettes this month (with the shows’ second seasons respectively debuting on October 16th on Cinemax and October 12th on FX). As the good-bad surgeon Thackery continues to fight his addiction, Martinez adds to his hallucinatory sound with ethereal, glass-like beauty and a beat that’s as out of early 1900’s place as it is intrinsically linked to it. – Daniel Schweiger Read the full article at Film Music Magazine or click play to listen to the interview.

Rolling Stone – Blood Brothers: Inside the Music of ‘The Knick’

… the director turned to the only person he thought could give The Knick a unique sound: his frequent collaborator, Cliff Martinez.

“I had some reservations about it at first,” Martinez says. “You’re trying so hard to place the viewer in this time and this place, and the music is really fighting something that everyone else in the show is trying to achieve. But as the episodes started coming in, and seeing that it had all this electronic stuff that was mine, I realized that it was working. So it gave me the confidence to do it.”

Ultimately, Martinez fashioned the most compelling soundtrack on television right now. A complete anachronism, the composer constructed a postmodern and curious through-line for the series with droning, minimalistic synthesizer and guitar lines, warbling bass and chimes that seem to swoop down from nowhere.

-David Mermelstein

Read the full article at Rolling Stone – Blood Brothers: Inside the Music of ‘The Knick’

Surgical Instruments: The Knick’s Cliff Martinez on Creating the Show’s Musical Heartbeat

Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles Times/Contour by Getty Images
Cliff Martinez – Photo Ricardo DeAratanha

If you were initially thrown by the modern, electronic music used to score Steven Soderbergh’s 1900-set medical drama The Knick, you are not alone: The idea also caught the show’s composer, Cliff Martinez, off guard at first.

“The most important thing that Steven usually does that outlines the approach is that he sends me a rough cut of the picture. The big curveball in The Knick was that temporary music [he used] as he was editing — he was using my music from Drive and Contagion and Spring Breakers, which was a surprise because it didn’t acknowledge the period whatsoever. In fact, it kind of went in the opposite direction,” Martinez tells TVGuide.com. “At first it seemed like a risk because the whole idea of the show was to try to put the viewer in 1900 in New York and everything was pulling in that direction except for the music. I had a phone call with Steven and then I just said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ He said, ‘Yeah. It’s going to be all electronic. It’s going to be modern. That’s intentional.’ And after a few weeks, it had become the sound of the show.”

Read the full article at TV Guide

A Conversation with Composer Cliff Martinez – Cool Hunting

Nicolas Winding Refn and Cliff Martinez
Nicolas Winding Refn and Cliff Martinez

The brains behind the film music for Solaris, Drive and Spring Breakers on his newest bloody project with Steven Soderbergh.

A Conversation with Composer Cliff Martinez at Moogfest this year attracted a mix of curious festival attendees and die-hard fans – many of whom cared much more for Martinez’s dark, ambient scores than the actual movie plots. The regular Steven Soderbergh collaborator (“Sex, Lies and Videotape,” “Traffic,” and “Solaris”) has reached even more prominence lately since scoring critically acclaimed films such as Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive” and Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers.” Martinez, a soft-spoken and charming speaker, was surprisingly upfront about where he gets his ideas and how he executes them. Budding film score composers, take note: Martinez uses software synths like Omnisphere and u-he, arranging in Ableton Live, but calls himself a preset guy. However, you probably don’t own a gamelan metallophone or 17 baritone steel drums from Trinidad—the latter of which are prominently featured on the “Solaris” soundtrack, which Martinez cites as his all-time favorite score: “I wish I could roll out of bed every day and write another ‘Solaris.'”  – Nara Shin

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