Solaris

Indie Soundtrack Master Cliff Martinez Talks Scoring The Neon Demon

The longtime movie maestro’s third collaboration with the director Nicolas Winding Refn opens Friday.

An important ingredient in my artistic upbringing is punk rock. Shortly after moving to L.A., I was rehearsing in South Central L.A. with a top-40 band that was doing George Benson cover songs. In an adjacent room, I heard an offensive racket that turned out to be L.A.’s first (or second) punk rock band, The Screamers. At first I was repulsed. My next response was, “This is interesting,” and by the end of the song, I was hooked. Shortly thereafter I joined The Weirdos. We played at the Whisky A Go Go and when I saw three people do swan dives off the balcony, I thought to myself, “That beats applause any day.”

Read the full interview at Vanity Fair by Spike Carter

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

A Conversation with Composer Cliff Martinez – Cool Hunting

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

Read more here …

Interviewly – Cliff Martinez on Reddit AMA – July 2013

REDDIT: Is it true that Beefheart pushed a guy down the stairs after he didn’t understand how to ”play a strawberry” on the drums?

CLIFF: The stairs story appears in Drumbo’s book but I don’t recall the line about “play a strawberry”. That’s very Beefheart though. I was asked to play “giant blue babies levitating over the mountain….you know, like Fred Asparagus dangling through the teacup”. I must have played it correctly because he didn’t throw me down the stairs.

Read the entire interview at Interviewly

Composer Cliff Martinez Talks Score For ‘Contagion’ & Working With Steven Soderbergh

Working at a relentless pace, Steven Soderbergh’s work ethic has benefitted not only from his drive and focus, but from surrounding himself with a regular group of collaborators who understand his process and approach to filmmaking. And one of those regulars is composer Cliff Martinez (a former drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers too). He has worked with Soderbergh ever since his debut “sex, lies & videotape,” contributing to films big and small including “Kafka,” “Traffic,” “The Limey,” “King Of The Hill” and more. The forthcoming virus thriller, “Contagion,” will mark their tenth film together and it will definitely find the duo in new territory. Described by Soderbergh as a type of “horror movie” the star-studded tale — the cast includes Kate Winslet, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law and many, many more — chronicles the outbreak of a deadly virus as it spreads quickly worldwide. It’s a new genre for composer and director alike and the results should be fascinating. – Drew Taylor | The Playlist

Read the full article here.

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

Behind The Track with Cliff Martinez

Cliff Martinez entered the limelight as the drummer for The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Captain Beefheart, The Dickies and Lydia Lunch. In 1989, he decided to leave life on the road to pursue the dream of film scoring in Hollywood. From his humble beginnings with a sampling drum machine and keyboard, he has assembled a state-of-the-art studio in his home, and a credit list including “Traffic”, “Sex Lies and Videotape”, “Solaris”, and “Narc.” – by Jeff Laity

Read the full interview at TASCAM

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