One of the many striking things about Beasts of the Southern Wild was its excellent, evocative soundtrack; I thought of Beirut with some americana folk elements and Meribah of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, but those with less impoverished and white-person indie-dominated musical references than us would no doubt have more accurate comparisons, presumably New Orleans-based.[*]
The music is really front and centre in Beasts, from the twinkling music box motifs that generate its dream-like air through the rousing fiddle-drums-horns pieces that evoke the energy of the Bathtub community (the fiddle recurs throughout in a variety of guises) and the slower, more emotive pieces like "I Think I Broke Something" and "The Thing That Made You", and it holds together strongly as a listening experience even without the images it accompanies, mostly in little one or two minute snippets, though the two longest ("The Bathtub" and "Once There Was A Hushpuppy") are two of the best.
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[*] Although, having written that and then done some googling, these interviews with co-composer Dan Romer (the other credited co-composer is Benh Zeitlin, who also directed the film) suggest that its influences are much more varied than simply trad deep south (Rihanna gets mentioned in both).
The music is really front and centre in Beasts, from the twinkling music box motifs that generate its dream-like air through the rousing fiddle-drums-horns pieces that evoke the energy of the Bathtub community (the fiddle recurs throughout in a variety of guises) and the slower, more emotive pieces like "I Think I Broke Something" and "The Thing That Made You", and it holds together strongly as a listening experience even without the images it accompanies, mostly in little one or two minute snippets, though the two longest ("The Bathtub" and "Once There Was A Hushpuppy") are two of the best.
* * *
[*] Although, having written that and then done some googling, these interviews with co-composer Dan Romer (the other credited co-composer is Benh Zeitlin, who also directed the film) suggest that its influences are much more varied than simply trad deep south (Rihanna gets mentioned in both).
