A Different Animal – Gruff Rhys on writing music… | Little White Lies

Film Music

A Dif­fer­ent Ani­mal – Gruff Rhys on writ­ing music for movies

10 Oct 2016

Words by Gruff Rhys

A man in a suit stands beside a pinball machine decorated with stars and swirling patterns.
A man in a suit stands beside a pinball machine decorated with stars and swirling patterns.
The Super Fur­ry Ani­mals front­man recounts the for­ma­tive screen expe­ri­ences that inspired his lat­est orig­i­nal score.

My name is Gruff Rhys, I’m a song­writer and I release albums of songs and stuff like that. In recent years I’ve end­ed up con­tribut­ing some sound­tracks to a bunch of films. But I’m in no doubt – releas­ing an OST album into the wild is very dif­fer­ent to releas­ing a con­ven­tion­al gener­ic Long Play­er called for exam­ple, Beach Par­ty 2: Ten Sing-a-Long Sum­mer Bar­be­cue Bangers.’

Yes indeed, in com­par­i­son the sound­track album can be a frus­trat­ing beast to tame. The raw music sep­a­rat­ed from the con­text of its cel­lu­loid home roams wild and can appear anaemic, aloof and anti-social.

One solu­tion to deal with such an ani­mal lest it not cause grief to the gen­er­al pub­lic is to give it a long leash, it then has a licence to mean­der, sniff out the var­i­ous tan­gents that the plot has sug­gest­ed, safe in the knowl­edge that it can be reigned in by the perime­ters of its new medi­um, best served – if you’re roman­ti­cal­ly inclined – by a dou­ble help­ing of the 20 min­utes or so that a side of a vinyl LP provides.

This plas­tic haven pro­vides the com­pos­er wild dog a con­cise ves­sel to edit the hours of repris­ing motifs, ten­sion build­ing swells and com­mis­sioned the­mat­ic songs into a brand new work. Not the 90 minute plus sideshow hike where the ani­mal in ques­tion can stop for a drink and hang­out casu­al­ly with the griz­zly auteur-bear of cin­e­matog­ra­phy, tak­ing in the view while kick­ing back at the nation­al park’s snack-bar hous­ing obser­va­tion deck.

No, this is not the kalei­do­scop­ic son­ic pop­corn of a com­plet­ed movie. The OST is the bru­tal­ist satel­lite tow­er in the pine for­est of pop, the pur­ple Por­tuguese man o’ war in the tran­quil blue lagoon of clas­si­cal music. For exam­ple, the albums of these dis­tant cousins – the pop album and the OST – are often com­pared side by side; I detect none of the pine fresh scent of pop’s for­est canopy’ cry the don­keys of dri­ve time. Thats because it’s a con­crete struc­ture, not an aer­i­al of veg­e­ta­tion’ retort the rabid wolves of the OST.

Take the track Witch’ on Goblin’s Sus­piria sound­track – a mas­ter­piece in the majes­tic wilder­ness of the cin­e­ma where Dario Argen­to places it loud­er than the dia­logue itself, yet Witch’ is a divi­sive ani­mal when cor­ralled into an unfa­mil­iar domes­tic audio set­ting of say, a soft rock lov­ing nuclear fam­i­ly (unless the said fam­i­ly are vio­lent­ly inclined and prac­ti­tion­ers of pen­ta­gram wield­ing witchcraft).

Fear not, as we are in safe Goblin’s hands, and soon enough, after a few ear pierc­ing tracks the bulging rock of the friend­ly, chime laden recur­ring motif sticks out in the riv­er of burn­ing dis­so­nant lava pro­vid­ing a firm grip, a short respite for an over­priced tub of Ben and Jerry’s before we are swept away on anoth­er rub­ber dingy rapid into the dark­est nook of the ear’s evil vio­let tint­ed orifice.

As OST’s go, the one I com­posed for the film Set Fire to the Stars is at the pic­turesque end of the spec­trum of scenic sound­tracks – a good few melod­ic vers­es away from Suspiria’s evil mid­dle eight – apart from the spooky piano-backed Eli­jah Wood mono­logue about the dead mouse. A mono­chrome affair set in 1950, I felt it was best served by instru­men­ta­tion from that era. I formed a qua­si-jazz band and hired a string quar­tet. Beyond that I felt no need to ape the styles of the era in ques­tion apart from one lunar jazz num­ber, Atom Bomb’, which was played on a juke­box in one of the scenes and so need­ed to con­vey that spe­cif­ic year son­i­cal­ly and the­mat­i­cal­ly. It would have nev­er been writ­ten out­side the con­text of the film and so it’s a real curios­i­ty, although I stand by the sen­ti­ment that the world would be bet­ter served with­out nuclear bombs and it’s a shame dis­ar­ma­ment wasn’t sort­ed out well before the 50s so that it wasn’t avail­able sub­ject mat­ter for a song.

Regard­less of pos­si­ble pend­ing Armaged­don, my favourite sound­track is one that was fea­tured on a nar­ra­tion free doc­u­men­tary from the mid 60s that fol­lowed the Tour de France around the bends of that great coun­try in ver­ité mode accom­pa­nied son­i­cal­ly by just a sin­gle drum­mer play­ing along to the film on his drum-kit.

Its sim­plic­i­ty belies the ten­sion and excite­ment that sim­ple per­cus­sion (also the main fea­ture of Goblin’s Witch’ too) is able to cov­ey. I saw it on TV as a teenag­er in 1986 and although I’ve nev­er seen it since and have been unable to source it on the inter­net as I hon­est­ly can’t remem­ber the title, its beats are deeply embossed in my mem­o­ry – and I aped it on part of the Set Fire to the Stars sound­track where a short two minute piece con­sists of just a soli­tary drum­mer – short­ly fol­lowed of course by the recur­ring motif of the title track.

Some­times at night I dream of a bru­tal con­crete pyra­mid that tow­ers grace­ful­ly over the sur­round­ing rain­for­est. A wild dog howls on its apex as the bar­be­cue-lov­ing, tree-liv­ing bears chor­tle sweet melodies to them­selves at a dance par­ty below. The con­flict­ing sounds har­monise into the clear star­ry night above, cre­at­ing a beau­ti­ful light show of bound­less son­ic pos­si­bil­i­ty and world peace. And then in comes the mis­judged sax­o­phone solo of morn­ing radio and I’m awake and it’s a rainy morn­ing in Brex­it-era Wales and I long once more for cin­e­mat­ic escape.

The Set Fire to the Stars sound­track is avail­able via find​er​skeep​er​srecords​.com

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