Cliff Martinez’s stunning score for Prada
Cliff Martinez’s stunning score for the Prada Spring/Summer 2023 women’s collection by Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons presents a sequence of realities.
REVIEWS
‘Drive haunts me’ – Cliff Martinez recalls race to finish the iconic soundtrack
“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
Cliff Martinez to Compose Music for Nicolas Winding Refn’s Netflix Series ‘Copenhagen Cowboy’
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.
Read the full article at filmmusicreporter.com
How a Punk Ethos Keeps a Legend Fresh
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
Glitter and doom: Cliff Martinez on horror, homage and The Neon Demon
The chemistry between the aural and the visual is so strong that The Neon Demon borders on synesthetic. Refn floods his frame with neon light, casting a glow on his vapid supermodels while lens flare cuts through bodies and faces like rainbow razors, while Martinez creates soundscapes that glow like stage lights and twinkle like glitter, only to butcher them with stabbing synthesizer pulses. The dreamy vision of LA’s fashion world is undercut with an intoxicating doom.
Read the full interview by Miles Bowe at FactMag
Cliff Martinez : The Neon Demon S/T
Cliff Martinez has been quietly dominating indie film scores for well over 20 years, starting out with Steven Soderbergh and his debut film Sex, Lies, and Videotape. He’s scored films as diverse as Pump Up The Volume, Wicker Park, and The Lincoln Lawyer, but he made his name with Steven Soderbergh. His scores are exquisite and precise. They form to the needs of the film and story. There’s never any grandstanding with Martinez. He serves the film and the film alone, but in doing that over the years he’s developed his own voice as a composer. By the time Soderbergh’s excellent remake of Solaris rolled around he’d found this unique way of serving the film, while at the same time creating a standalone piece of art in his music. That score is magnificent, dark, beautiful, and stays with you. I feel from that point on he’s become one of the most important American composers working today.
Back in 2011 Martinez started a working relationship with Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn. Martinez created the darkly lit, synth-driven score to Refn’s Drive that has since turned into a blossoming artistic partnership. He’s scored the aforementioned Drive, as well as Refn’s Only God Forgives and the short doc about Refn himself titled My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, directed by Refn’s wife Live Corfixn. Their newest collaboration is The Neon Demon, and I believe it’s their best collaboration to date.
Read the full review by J Hubner at BackSeatMafia.com
Cliff Martinez Expertly Conveys Refn’s Inner ‘Neon Demon’
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
CD: Cliff Martinez – The Neon Demon OST
Soundtrack to Nicolas Winding Refn’s fashionista horror flick contains nuggets worth mining.
Cliff Martinez isn’t your average Hollywood film composer. He didn’t come up via an orchestral academy or even move sideways from the electronica/classical crossover milieu. Neither John Williams nor Jóhann Jóhannsson are his template. Instead, he took a sharp left out of the LA punk scene, drumming in bands ranging from Lydia Lunch’s no wave noisiness to the nascent, raucous Red Hot Chili Peppers. He even played on Captain Beefheart’s final freak-out, 1982’s Ice Cream For Crow. However, since the Eighties, and especially working with the director Steven Soderbergh, he’s carved himself a niche as a film soundtrack creator.
Read the full review by Thomas H Green at theartsdesk.com
Soundtrack The Neon Demon
Cliff Martinez schreef geen traditionele score voor deze film. Dat komt misschien doordat hij ooit meedraaide in de punkwereld. Hij gebuikt moderne klanken bij vaak donkere en psychologische films zoals Pump Up The Volume, The Limey, Wicker Park en Drive. Hij is als muzikant bekend door het manipuleren van geluid, vooral dat van percussiewerk. Zijn techniek is geëvolueerd doorheen de jaren. Zelf omschrijft hij het als ‘rhythmi-tizing pitched, ambient textures’ die vooral in Narc tot uiting komen.
Wie vertrouwd is met het werk van Cliff Martinez, weet dat de componist een heel specifieke stijl heeft. Eentje die doorheen de jaren nogal repetitief was verspreid over verschillende films en soundtracks. De vraag is dan ook of Martinez nog muzikaal uitdagend uit de hoek kan komen? Terwijl “Neon Demon” uit mijn hoofdtelefoon weergalmt, durf ik ja zeggen. De beats bonken stevig tijdens dit nummer waarbij je allerlei kleurrijke taferelen inbeeldt. De soundtrack werd bekroond tijdens de Filmfestival van Cannes. De fans schaffen zich best zeker de plaat aan.
Didier Van Hoorebeke – supercalifragilistic.be
Cliff Martinez – The Neon Demon Soundtrack
The composer’s latest for Nicolas Winding Refn proves they’re artistic soulmates.
This is Martinez’s third collaboration with Refn—he captured the zeitgeist with his score for 2011’s Drive and also worked on Refn’s divisive follow-up Only God Forgives—and also his most assertive. Where those soundtracks trafficked mainly in synth-heavy ambiance and shattering moments of dissonance, The Neon Demon’s 23 tracks are much more concerned with melody. Driving backbeats ground many of the tracks, as do infectious synth burbles and chugging trails of distortion. Some moments are strikingly pretty, others deeply unpleasant; none of it, though, is lacking in personality.
Read the full review by Randall Colburn at Consequence of Sound
Nicolas Winding Refn and Cliff Martinez Discuss the Dark Side of Beauty, Taking Risks, and the Hypnotic Soundtrack of The Neon Demon
Refn is quick to admit that he has no problem leaving many of the technical aspects of composing to Martinez. “I can’t play an instrument, I can’t sing, I can’t dance, I don’t have the confidence,” he admits. “That’s never stopped me!”, Martinez interjects with a laugh. Fearlessness in singing and dancing aside, he humbly credits Refn for helping him branch out and take chances. “I always tend to be really conservative because music just takes a long time to create so I don’t take that many risks, but Nicolas encourages risk-taking in the music. So that trust factor is a big deal and you kind of earn it, in our case, over three films. I seem to be getting bigger and bigger roles in Nicolas’ films.”
by Ari Drew at Dread Central
Soundtrack Listening: ‘The Neon Demon’
The Neon Demon Soundtrack is a must listen for any fan of Cliff Martinez … and any fan of film composition for that matter. Its the sort of music that you can actually see. And feel. Its the sort of music you’ll want to listen to over and over again. And you should. Much like a great movie, you will experience something different every time through. That’s as much ask you can as for from an album – let alone a soundtrack.
Read the full review by Patrick Phillips at Cut Print Film
The Neon Demon by Cliff Martinez (Review)
Cliff Martinez’s aesthetic as a composer is unique and truly special. He never compromised his voice as a storyteller to fit the mold of Hollywood. Instead he found amazing filmmakers to work with whose visions were able to utilize his unique way of scoring. Nicolas Winding Refn found his working companion in Cliff Martinez when the two worked together on Drive. The film’s popular soundtrack was a hit amongst fans, and Cliff Martinez’s score was a perfect compliment to Refn’s vision. This continued on Only God Forgives, where again the marriage of image and sound seamlessly blended together. Here in The Neon Demon it seems Martinez and Refn have truly accomplished something beyond just memorable. The Neon Demon is one of the most masterful scores Cliff Martinez has ever written, and the sonic palette presented here absorbs you into the vivid imagery of Nicolas Winding Refn’s stylish thriller.
Read the full review by Kaya Savas at Film.Music.Media
Interview with Cliff Martinez – Film Music Magazine
If there’s one thing that composer Cliff Martinez shares in common with Jesse, the nymphet model of “The Neon Demon,” then it’s that both are soft spoken while rocking peoples’ worlds. For Jesse, it’s becoming a sensation that drives LA’s fashionistas wild with desire as The Next Big Thing. For former Chili Peppers drummer Martinez, it was creating a sound of alt. rhythmic minimalism that changed the face of indie scoring with Steven Soderbergh’s “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” But if Jesse has the misfortune of attracting equally gorgeous, if far more twisted people who want to absorb the blonde essence of her corn-fed enchantment, Martinez’s sonic spell has had the far more fortunate result of attracting creative agent provocateurs – perhaps none more twisted than Nicolas Winding Refn.
Read the full interview by Daniel Schweiger at Film Music Magazine
Cliff Martinez talks scoring ‘The Neon Demon’ and “keeping it cool”
“I was taught music should express an added dimension that isn’t apparent in the dialogue. Music needs to step in and fill in the blanks. But Nicolas takes it to another level,” says Martinez.
“A little bit goes a long way in film music – you try to get a few balls in the air, sculpt it and spin it out into a lot of other scenes,” said Martinez, who said the main advice along the way from Winding Refn was to “keep it cool”.
Read the full article by Tiffany Pritchard at Screen Daily
Neon Demon and the Synthesizer Soundtrack by Cliff Martinez
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
Cannes 2016 – The Neon Demon : La nouvelle marque de NWR
La bande-son est aussi une perle du genre qui renforce l’ambiance oppressante de ce milieu très prisé. L’univers sonore est riche, varié, contient des sons électros composés par Cliff Martinez. La bande-son permet de renforcer des situations déjà malsaines pour réellement enfermer le spectateur avec les personnages ; à noter qu’elle se base aussi sur le point de vue de Jesse. Pour ainsi dire, l’ambiance sonore devient aussi une esthétique à part entière et porte aussi le film. Elle paraît énigmatique et mystérieuse, parfois inquiétante et violente tout en surplombant les images et le récit. C’est cet ensemble de rouages qui donnent au film de Nicolas Winding Refn, une œuvre réjouissante, effrayante et expérimentale.
Lire l’article complet à LE GEEK CINEPHILE
Hear 2 Tracks From Cliff Martinez’s Score For ‘The Neon Demon’
One of the more exciting creative partnerships to emerge in the past few years has been that between composer Cliff Martinez and director Nicolas Winding Refn. Martinez’s cool, pulsating sound was a perfect fit for the slick pop thriller “Drive,” and the grim tale of cyclical vengeance in “Only God Forgives,” and the duo are back at it with upcoming fashion world horror “The Neon Demon.” And Martinez is more than happy to keep his artistic relationship with the director going strong.
“Nicolas also sends me his script and he talks to me about the project before he even shoots it….I think I know what kind of music Nicolas likes, so I kind of stay in that territory,” he told Thump earlier this year. “After doing a couple of films with him you realize monogamy has its benefits. You understand what he’s looking for, the communication becomes better, and usually you go a little deeper each time. I think ‘Neon Demon’ had some similarities to ‘Drive,’ it’s kind of a sparse electronic score. Music writing has a juicy role in ‘Neon Demon’ — well, I haven’t seen the finished film, but there’s over an hour of music. And there’s a lot of places where the music is really pushed out more into the spotlight, even more than ‘Drive.’ I think I got a bigger part in the film, it’s flattering.”
Certainly, Martinez’s work is an integral part of the fabric of Refn’s films, and these two exclusive tracks — “Don’t Forget Me When You’re Famous” and “Messenger Walks Among Us” — see the composer provide synth dripping atmospherics, along with his trademark propulsive sound, that are perfect complements for the high end world that Elle Fanning traverses in “The Neon Demon.”
– by Edward Davis at THEPLAYLIST.NET
Cannes 2016 : Cannes Soundtrack Awards pour Cliff Martinez
Palmarès Cannes Soundtrack 2016
“Coup de Cœur” de la Meilleure Musique de Film Originale
Cliff Martinez pour The Neon Demon de Nicolas Winding Refn
Après Lim Gion pour The assassin de Hou Hsiao-Hsien, c’est donc Cliff Martinez (qui avait déjà collaboré avec Nicolas Winding Refn pour Only God forgives et Drive) qui a été récompensé cette année pour la musique très expressive de The neon Demon de Nicolas Winding Refn. Tantôt lancinante et ultra-rythmée, hallucinée et délicate, elle donne au film une identité sonore forte, entre étrangeté contenue et cauchemar anxiogène. L’apport de Martinez est d’ailleurs évidente dans l’esthétique choc du film et dans la recherche formelle quasi abstraite du réalisateur danois. A noter que la bande-originale du film sera éditée à partir du 3 juin prochain.
Composer Cliff Martinez and Director Nicolas Winding Refn reunite for The Neon Demon
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
The Neon Demon’s jaw-dropping depravity leaves Cannes reeling
Through flashing prisms and mirror images, and underpinned by Cliff Martinez’s superb score – all subaquatic throbs and cascading, gem-refracted electronica – Fanning’s face becomes a kind of idolatrous icon, and we feel as if we’re bearing witness to a strange and occult ritual.
Read full review at The Telegraph
Soundtrack Review: Cliff Martinez’s Score for THE NEON DEMON
For his original score for Refn’s latest fever dream THE NEON DEMON, Martinez has created his magnum opus, his aural masterpiece. A collection of cues that veer smoothly between lush landscapes of dreamy ambience and abstract swells of mind and ear-bending malevolence.
The main attraction here is Martinez’s seductive sounds and, for almost 20 tracks (the CD is a single long playing disc and the vinyl is 2 platters; both will be released via Milan Records, the former on June 24th, the latter on July 8th), Martinez seamlessly blends new and old technology and musical sensibilities to disorienting, rapturous effect.
Each track connects to the other, creating a tapestry of unbearable tension that punctuates with organic, aural money-shots before settling back into a deep, lulling droning tone. The score is the logical extension of DRIVE’s California menace, but far less sunny an experience. Because THE NEON DEMON is a horror movie. And this is most assuredly a horror movie soundtrack.
Read the full review by Chris Alexander at SHOCKTILLYOUDROP.COM
popOptiq – The Knick “Not Well at All”
“With a laundry list of stellar moments, a ton of gravitas, and the best use yet of Cliff Martinez’s pulsing electric score, “Not Well at All” shows the potential that The Knick has to weave a series of great tales into a profound and involving whole, and why it is easily one of the best shows to grace the airwaves in years.” – Mike Worby
The Knick, Ep. 2.08, “Not Well at All” at popOptiq
Cliff Martinez i The Knick na Międzynarodowej Gali Seriali podczas 8 Festiwalu Muzyki Filmowej w Krakowie
Niegdyś muzyk Red Hot Chili Peppers, a od wielu lat uznany w świecie autor muzyki filmowej (Traffic, Solaris, Drive) – Cliff Martinez to ostatni gość specjalny Międzynarodowej Gali Seriali w ramach tegorocznej, 8. już odsłony Festiwalu Muzyki Filmowej w Krakowie. W sobotę, 30 maja w krakowskiej arenie kompozytor zaprezentuje muzykę stworzoną do jednego z najgłośniejszych tytułów 2014 roku, nominowanego do Złotych Globów serialu The Knick.
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
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
The Company You Keep by Cliff Martinez
2011’s DRIVE was certainly a milestone in the career of composer CLIFF MARTINEZ. The playlist for Nicolas Winding Refn’s savagely smooth drama burst into musical circles beyond film scores with its criminally cool tones, raising the profile of MARTINEZ dramatically in the process. THE COMPANY YOU KEEP is unlikely to make such musical waves – largely due to the film itself – but it is another indication that CLIFF MARTINEZ is clearly molding his own niche within film scoring and is continually improving with each score.
Two major themes make up the spine of THE COMPANY YOU KEEP, each developing the two emotional landscapes that make up the score… – by Richard Buxton
Read more at TRACKSOUNDS.
Ilio / Spectrasonics Artist Profile: Cliff Martinez
Cliff Martinez sat down with us to talk about his transition from rock drummer to film composer, show us his exotic musical toys, and discuss what quality a virtual instrument must possess to appear in his scores. With many blockbuster films to his credit, he knows what he’s talking about.
Music Review: The Lincoln Lawyer Soundtrack Album by Cliff Martinez
The 41 minutes of Martinez’s score included on this album are much more thrilling than I expected them to be. There’s a constant undertone of dread and suspense that permeates every track of this album, but without tipping the vibe over into the type of paranoid action thriller scoring that sometimes result from this type of attempt. There seems to be a grim optimism playing out in the peppy rhythms that help maintain a positive vibe throughout the album despite the inherent darkness hanging over every note (listen to “I’m a Missionary Man” for a perfect example of this). The jumpy percussion in tracks like “Whose Side Are You On?” bring some unexpected levity to such an otherwise heavy score. Mixing in some digital effects with the guitar and other instruments gives the music a modern/urban feel that plays nicely into the image of the film. In the liner notes Martinez briefly comments on how seriously he took this score after seeing the film, and this dedication shows clearly in his music. – by Zach Freeman
Full review at BLOGGER NEWS
Ambient Music Guide Review – Solaris by Cliff Martinez
Is Cliff Martinez’s Solaris the best sci-fi film score since Vangelis’ opus for Blade Runner (1982)? Martinez’s effort may have equals in the sci-fi sphere, but nothing surpasses it for originality and haunting atmosphere. Martinez and American filmmaker Steven Soderberg have worked together for many years and their collaborations have always been interesting, notably Traffic (2000), Contagion (2011) and Sex Lies & Videotape (1989), even if the accompanying soundtrack albums for those films are hit and miss affairs. Solaris, however, is completely unified as a standalone album. – by Mike G
Full review of Solaris Soundtrack at Ambient Music Guide
DRONING MAN – L.A.Weekly
After he’d worn out the carpet in front of the slot machine for another three years, speeding along with persistent punkers the Dickies and scoring an episode of Pee-wee’s Playhouse among other activities, Martinez lined up his lemons and broke the bank in 1988. He’d been making sound collages — “body noises, pots and pans, sound effects, played rhythmically. I was working the cracks between music and sound effects.” Mark Mangini, a sound designer who’d been asked while working on the film Alien Nation for “some sound effects that were kind of like music,” had heard Martinez’s stuff and asked him to give it a whack on spec. “They never used any of what I did, because the music was really pretty nutty,” says Martinez. Anyway, while Martinez and Mangini were listening to it, Mangini’s roommate butted in and started making suggestions. “We hit it off great. I could tell he was not a musician but had a great instinct about how to use music in films. He said, ‘This stuff would be perfect for my next film, sex, lies, and videotape. Would you like to score it?’” The roommate was Steven Soderbergh, then an unknown. You are correct: Martinez did not decline.
– Greg Burk
Great article from 2003, not to be missed. Read the full text at L.A.Weekly
BBC Review – Cliff Martinez – Solaris Original Soundtrack
Strings are muted and orchestration so subtle as to be almost non-existent (respect to ex-Zappa sidekick Bruce Fowler for this light touch). In other words the music perfectly captures the mood of the film. A brooding slow, meditative work that is never afraid to leave the viewer/listener to draw their own conclusions. And to be set adrift like Kelvin himself. Not in the vast emptiness of space, but in the infinitely more chilling abyss of the subconscious.
Like Soderbergh’s icily muted cinematic palette, Martinez’s textures are at once samey, yet never boring. Paradoxical? Yes. But to see the film is to understand what a challenge it was to convey the kind of existentialism that mainstream Hollywood is normally so bereft of. Just for once this is thoughtful stuff; music for adults. – Chris Jones
Full article at BBC.com
MIX Magazine – Cliff Martinez – Traffic
For Traffic, Soderbergh showed Martinez a rough cut of the film with a temp score. “Steven wanted a score similar in style to sex, lies, and videotape, which was slow, ambient and had a conspicuous absence of melody, harmony and rhythm. It was an unusual approach to take back in 1989, and I was a little surprised that Steven wanted to go down that road again with a $50 million dollar picture.”
Martinez estimates that about 60% of the music for Traffic was “recorded” via samplers in his studio. Pianist Herbie Hancock and guitarists David Torn and Michael Brook were recorded in their respective home studios, while Flea and percussionists Alex Acuna and Paulinho Da Costa were recorded at Media Ventures in Santa Monica. Because it was primarily an ambient score, Martinez and scoring mixer Alan Meyerson decided to add space and size to the sound by pumping the elements into a live space and recording the ambience. This enabled them to create a full, warm surround mix without using much in the way of electronic processing. They chose the famous Capitol Studios for the task with excellent results. The score was mixed by Meyerson at Media Ventures. – by Robyn Flans
Full article at MIX