“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
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
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
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
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
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
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
The Neon Demon actress, director, and composer exorcise the film’s themes.
A former drummer for Red Hot Chili Peppers, Captain Beefheart, and Lydia Lunch, the 62-year-old composer initially broke into film after scoring Steven Soderbergh’s 1989 breakthrough indie hit, sex, lies, and videotape, a partnership that’s continued ever since and ultimately led to his latest ventures with Refn.
The Neon Demon marks their third collaboration together — fourth, if you count Liv Corfixen’s My Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn — and Martinez’s compositions have certainly added a flavorful touch to Refn’s stoic ouevre. In a way, each score serves as a ghostly narrator, haunting the filmmaker’s trademark long shots with an ambient glaze that’s meditative and comforting.
Read the full article and interview by Michael Roffman at Consequence of Sound
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
Jóhann Jóhannsson, Joseph Trapanese, Cliff Martinez i Łukasz Targosz gośćmi specjalnymi piątkowego wieczoru w Centrum Kongresowym ICE Kraków
„Partytura dronowa jest może trudna do zdefiniowania, ale ma przed sobą wielką przyszłość pod warunkiem, że zostanie połączona z tradycyjnymi elementami muzyki, takimi jak wyrazista melodia czy klarowna rytmika” – uważa Łukasz Targosz, jeden z bohaterów piątkowego wieczoru w Centrum Kongresowym ICE Kraków. Jego muzyka do serialu HBO „Pakt” i dramatu Patryka Vegi „Pitbull” otworzyła wczoraj uroczystą galę „alterFMF: Drone Sounds”.
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
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
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
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.
Cannes Film Festival Press Conference with Cliff Martinez Winner of Best Soundtrack for The Neon Demon (starts at 14:30)
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Writers: Nicolas Winding Refn, Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars: Elle Fanning as Jesse, Christina Hendricks as Jan, Keanu Reeves as Hank
‘The Neon Demon’ Summary: When aspiring model Jesse (Elle Fanning) moves to Los Angeles, her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means necessary to get what she has.
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
