Haunting simple and cinematic, with music box, angelic vocals, piano and orchestral strings, including a searching solo violin. If you are looking for a magical and macabre setting for something you’ve hit gold. This will suit pretty much anything from fantasy adverts to Brother’s Grimm fairy tales. You can almost hear someone narrating over the top. Brilliant.
Running over the hills, through the forest, but like, as fast as the wind. In black and white, as part of a dramatic film sequence (or an advert for Jägermeister) – is my exploitative interpretation of this brilliantly thumping and atmospheric track. Tribal drums (in the folk sense?) perfectly synchronised with acoustic guitar keep you on your toes with off-kilter time signatures and dramatic flourishes. The vocal version adds a close but haunting feel pushing you like the wind… you can probably tell I like this track. Imagine Woodkid, if Woodkid was good.
Varied and cascading piano and live string section swirl into a vortex of questions and answers, unifying in a positive crescendo around 1:00, then launching into a series of dynamic sections, before a serene unified ending. Sophisticated and masterfully arranged – I’d imagine Pina Bausch choreographing something to this.
Balkan-style instrumental. Sustained string note builds anticipation, piano motif and drums enters underneath, excitement builds. Strings become louder and earthier in tone. Balkan-style melody enters on choppy violins with double bass drums and piano accompaniment. Grows with frenetic energy, soaring, squeaking violins, melodies intersecting. Dramatic change of tone: complete slow down with drunk double bass and woozy violin swaying drowsily between notes. Shrill piano joins adding jazzy flourishes, all build back to previous upbeat, ramshackle melody. Dramatic, surprising, reckless and intriguing, suitable for a rollicking TV advert or Film/TV/Doc scene, or a strange party scene, where our character is disorientated and disconcerted by the madness happening all around, dropped unexpectedly into a quirky unknown world.
Two part brass instrumental. Unsteady jazz piano and erratic saxophone notes begin before settling into a mellow, lyrical piano and sax melody with warm string swells. Slightly off-kilter tuning counteracts the sweetness of the melody, giving it a quirky edge. Dreamlike, nostalgic and strange, would suit a reflective documentary moment or a sentimental but not sickly-sweet Film/TV sequence.
Delicate and mild, with piano and strings orchestrated in a classic manner and built to deliver poignancy and introspection at their earnest level. It swells in the middle section both in intensity and intention, to create a sense of hopefulness that contrasts the stark and rarefied beginning. Will suit coming of age stories with frail and delicate yet resolute characters.
Sparse plucked Cello, calm and slightly wry, anticipating something, a note of unease. Then out of nowhere urgent and plaintive bowed cello and violin. Rhythmic at first then suspending itself with long drawn out notes. At 4:14 there is a unified statement, uneasy and dissonant. It feels like someone is valiantly struggling to pull themselves up but can’t do it. They try harder and more desperately but the forlornness of the situation overtakes them, they pause, then after a last effort they fall to their doom. If you were ever narrating an Edgar Allen Poe story, this would be the soundtrack to it.
Dissonant and cloudy, a crying lament of strings that successfully combines early classical 1900s influences with modern day film scoring. It has four definite sections that alternate relaxation with excitement. It will suit period dramas with complex characterisations but also possibly otherworldly and supernatural settings. Atonement. Downton Abbey if it had more balls.
Catchy and positive, with intense Moog-like arpeggiated synths, flashes of dubstep inserts, and compelling guitars to set the scene for a synth pop song structure in the domain of cool electronica. Available both with and without vocals, will play well as soundtrack for teen comedies and dramas, but also as advertising refrain.
Magical and dreamy, with an ethereal celeste and orchestral percussions that create a compelling mix of childish playfulness and a confident rhythmical manner. It will suit well 30 seconds adverts. A sense of discovery for a mysterious world where children with magical powers play with castles made of sand.