Music Excerpts
Accompanied by notes on the musical creation process.
A nostalgic lo-fi symphony built from audio puzzle pieces (samples and loops), analog synthesizers, and sonic artifacts.
With Bagage, Perle Huvelin’s film about memory and remembrance, I conceived the music as a collection of small audio puzzle pieces to be cut, shaped, and reversed, mirroring the very structure of the film, which combines archival footage and stop-motion animation. I set myself the constraint of using no virtual instruments whatsoever, relying exclusively on pre-existing recorded sounds (samples) or sounds I recorded myself. For example, I used two samples taken from the song Les Jolies Choses by Polo & Pan. The film is nostalgic, but our protagonist’s memories are vibrant and colorful, made of modeling clay—a direct reference to childhood and play. The music therefore needed to be sensitive and emotionally authentic to the character's experience, while avoiding sadness. Instead, it had to make us almost want to dance amidst the images, carried along in the carousel of the character’s life. As Perle told me, “I don’t want something sad.” Bagage is a film in which music is omnipresent. There are virtually no sound effects (apart from the diegetic television at the beginning and a few sounds of waves). Perle expressed a desire for music built around loops, creating a sense of temporal continuity throughout the film. My challenge was therefore to create a five-minute musical piece capable of conveying the emotional depth of the images while providing a sense of unity in time, and at the same time remaining rich, evolving, and carefully orchestrated enough to sustain the viewer’s attention throughout the film.
A tribute to the singer Totó la Momposina and to traditional Colombian music.
Traditional Colombian songs largely speak of everyday life, the people of the village, music, and the sacred. “She sings, she sings, the Cantadora, the bullerengue of her soul” are the lyrics of the title song I wrote for this film. Bullerengue is one of the few musical traditions in Colombian folk music performed exclusively by women. Vocally, the singing is led by a master of ceremonies and is based on storytelling through a call-and-response structure. I composed the lead vocals, backing vocals, and the percussion parts using instruments typical of cumbia music, including the tambora, alegre, llamador, and handclaps. The directors introduced me to this artist through the live session El Pescador, recorded at Real World Studios, the studios founded by Peter Gabriel. Totó la Momposina is an iconic Colombian singer who spent years collecting traditional songs from villages across Colombia and bringing them to international audiences. I named this soundtrack La Cantadora as a tribute to the song of the same name collected by Totó, in which she honors the Cantadoras—women singers who play a central role in village life, helping to guide community affairs and respond to the needs of the people.
A Tim Burtonesque waltz for harp, mandolin, viola d'amore, and alto flute.
At first intrigued by the name of this dead-end street, we step into it cautiously. As the piece unfolds, the strange gradually takes over. In the end, we are swept into an endless macabre trance: our feet no longer touch the ground, our bodies move of their own accord, as though a disturbed Beetlejuice were pulling the strings of the scene.
I composed this mysterious waltz with a stream of images playing through my mind. Musically, I have always been drawn to the half-shadow, half-light soundscapes of composer Danny Elfman. Through its instrumentation, harmonies, and melancholic yet uncanny theme, L'Impasse du Mystère could be heard as a modern echo of Sally's Song by Elfman. On the other side of the mirror, I grew up with the offbeat, baroque poetry of Tim Burton: Vincent, Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Beetlejuice, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. To this day, I remain deeply inspired by this legendary duo of artistic outsiders.
Experimental music composed solely of voices, electronic textures, distortion, and vocal processing.
In HYSTERA, an experimental film by Aline Neri, the music is composed entirely of women’s voices. Created during an artistic residency in the countryside of the Lochois region, I set up a studio in a barn surrounded by all kinds of farming tools. In this makeshift studio, around ten women came to record. I asked them to laugh, scream, whisper, breathe, and improvise something spontaneously. I then reworked these voices by running the recordings through guitar effect pedals (vocal effects processing), and by adding digital processing in the computer to stretch the sound, reverse it, chop it up, and so on. The voices at the beginning of the film remain very natural, but as the film progresses, they become increasingly processed until they are almost unrecognisable. I am particularly drawn to the way a music-making process can respond to the form of a film. In that sense, just as HYSTERA is an experimental film, its soundtrack is equally experimental. When Aline described her film to me, she used the words: feminist, fragmented, black and white. The music echoes the layering effects of Aline’s editing, the flashes of images that carry us subtly from softness into madness.
A Western-style soundtrack featuring banjo and double bass for this absurd comedy set in a heatwave.
For Meurtre sous 50 Degrés by Astrid Sentis, I wanted a score that referenced classic Western soundtracks, built around banjo and double bass. My intention was for these two solo instruments to immerse us in the scorching Aude region, while also reinforcing the comedic nature of the characters and the absurdity of the investigation.
Created during an artistic residency in the countryside of the Lochois region, I set up a studio in a barn surrounded by various farming tools. In this makeshift studio, I had access to a banjo, which I taught myself to play entirely for this soundtrack. However, I did not have a double bass at hand. I therefore used an octaver pedal to modify the sound of my viola (a five-string violin), lowering it significantly to simulate the sound of a double bass.
A gentle, contemplative, childlike piece, carried by the soft felted hammering of the piano and the singing of bowed strings.
For Jack & The Giant, a film about the friendship between two protagonists perched above the clouds, I wanted an airy melody capable of moving the viewer to tears by the end of the film. I used a classical instrumentation: piano and violin.
The piano is played in the high register and represents Jack, a small and agile character. The violin, meanwhile, is played in the mid-register and represents the Giant, who may seem intimidating at first (with abrasive low-register textures), but gradually reveals himself to be deeply friendly and moving by the end of the film (with luminous, high-register sustained textures). The piano introduces the main theme at the beginning of the film, which is then reprised in unison at the end by both piano and violin, symbolising Jack and the Giant reunited through friendship.
The two main instruments are accompanied by a few sonic artefacts: harmonic mandolin tones, very soft bowing on the bridge (sul ponticello), and some reversed sounds. These elements enhance the sense of wonder and fantasy in the film, which draws on the famous English tale Jack and the Beanstalk by Henry Cole.