Music Excerpts
Accompanied by notes on the creation process
A nostalgic lo-fi symphony built from audio puzzle pieces (samples and loops), analog synthesizers, and sonic artifacts.
With Bagage, a film by Perle Huvelin about memory and recollection, I approached the music as a collection of small sonic puzzle pieces to be cut, shaped, and inverted, in response to the film’s own structure, which blends archival footage and stop-motion animation. I set myself the constraint of using no virtual instruments, relying solely on pre-existing recorded sounds (samples) or sounds I recorded myself. For instance, I used two samples taken from Les Jolies Choses by Polo & Pan. The film is nostalgic, yet the protagonist’s memories are vividly colorful and made of modeling clay—an immediate reference to childhood and play. The music therefore needed to be emotionally sensitive and true to the character’s feelings, while avoiding sadness, and instead almost inviting the viewer to dance through the images, within the carousel of the character’s life. Perle even told me, “I don’t want something sad.” Bagage is a film in which music is omnipresent; there are no sound effects apart from the diegetic TV at the beginning and a few wave sounds. Perle requested loop-based music to create a continuous sense of time throughout the film. I therefore had to compose a five-minute piece that carries the emotional narrative of the images, maintains temporal unity, and remains rich, evolving, and carefully orchestrated so that it never becomes repetitive.
A tribute to the singer Totó la Momposina and to traditional Colombian music.
Essentially, traditional Colombian songs speak about 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 piece I wrote for this film. Bullerengue is one of the rare traditional Colombian musical forms performed exclusively by women. Vocally, the singing is led by a master of ceremony and is built on storytelling through a call-and-response structure. I composed for the lead voice, choirs, and the typical percussion instruments of cumbia: tambora, alegre, llamador, palmas… The directors introduced me to this artist through the live session El Pescador, recorded at Real World Studios founded by Peter Gabriel. Totó la Momposina is an iconic Colombian singer who, over many years, collected traditional songs in villages across Colombia and brought them to international recognition. I titled this soundtrack La Cantadora, as a tribute to the song of the same name collected by Totó, in which she honors the Cantadoras—female singers who play a key role in village governance and in addressing the needs of the community.
A Tim Burton-esque waltz for harp, mandolin, quinton d'amour, and alto flute.
At first intrigued by the name of this dead-end street, one enters it with cautious steps. The strange gradually takes up more and more space as the piece unfolds. In the end, one is swept away into a macabre, endless trance—our feet no longer touch the ground, bodies move on their own, as if a deranged Beetlejuice were pulling the strings of the scene.
I composed this mysterious waltz while images were unfolding in my mind. Musically, I have always been drawn to the half-shadow, half-light sonic landscapes of composer Danny Elfman. Through its instrumentation, harmonies, and melancholic yet uncanny theme, L’Impasse du Mystère could feel like a modern echo of Elfman’s Sally’s Song. On the other side of the mirror, I grew up with the baroque and offbeat poetry of Tim Burton: Vincent, Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Beetlejuice, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory… Today, I remain deeply inspired by this duo of mythical outsiders.
Experimental music made exclusively from 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 artist residency in the countryside around Loches, I set up a studio in a barn, surrounded by various farm tools. In this homemade studio, around ten women came to record. I asked them to laugh, scream, whisper, breathe, and improvise freely and spontaneously. I then reworked these voices by running the recordings through guitar effects pedals (vocal effects processing), and by adding digital processing in the computer to stretch the sound, reverse it, chop it up, and more. The voices at the beginning of the film remain very natural, and as the film progresses, they become increasingly processed until they are almost unrecognisable.
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 music that would reference classic Western film scores, built around banjo and double bass. Above all, I wanted these two solo instruments to immerse us in the scorching Aude region, while also enhancing the comedic nature of the characters and the absurdity of the investigation.
Created during an artist residency in the countryside around Loches, I set up a studio in a barn, surrounded by various farm 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 alter the sound of my five-string viola (quinton) and lower it significantly, simulating the sound of a double bass.
A soft, contemplative, childlike piece of music, carried by the felted sound of piano hammers and bowed strings.
For Jack & The Giant, a film about the friendship between the two protagonists perched above the clouds, I wanted an airy melody capable of bringing the audience to tears by the end of the film. I used a classical instrumentation: piano and violin. The piano is played in the upper register and represents Jack, who is small and agile. The violin, meanwhile, is played in the middle register and represents the giant, who may seem frightening at first (with harsh, creaking low-register sounds) but gradually becomes warm and deeply moving by the end of the film (ethereal high-register textures). The piano introduces the main theme at the beginning of the film, which is later reprised in duet at the end, with both piano and violin—symbolizing Jack and the Giant reunited through friendship.
The two main instruments are accompanied by a few sonic artifacts: harmonic mandolin tones, very soft bowing at the bridge of the instrument (sul ponticello), and a few reversed sounds. These elements help enhance the sense of wonder and fantasy in the film, which draws inspiration from the classic English tale Jack and the Beanstalk by Henry Cole.