“Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” by Marco Beltrami, Buck Sanders

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A rather dark series for one of Marco Beltrami’s and Buck Sanders’ finest collaborations: Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Troy Nixey’s creepy horror movie may not be the film it ought to be, but the musical treatment by Beltrami and his pal Sanders is everything and anything any horror movie director could ever want. A very romantic, waltz-like lullaby, a fantastic main title theme, creepy-beautiful suspense music and spine-chilling action-sequences full of dissonance and terror. It’s the prime example of a horror score and I love it! There’s not much to say about my custom covers this time. They were all based on official promotion material…

“True Detective” by T Bone Burnett/Various Artists

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True Detective may be my TV surprise of the year so far. This HBO series is superb in every way! Be it the original characters (Nic Pizzolatto) and their portrayal (Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson), or the brilliant direction (Cary Fukunaga) and stunning cinematography (Adam Arkapaw). Everyone involved with this series performs at the top of the game and I cannot recommend it highly enough. But the game-changer for me has been T Bone Burnett’s meticulous selection of songs, that are featured so prominently within each episode. He assembled a collection of songs that is utterly fantastic. Unfortunately there hasn’t been an official soundtrack album yet, neither…

“A Scanner Darkly” by Graham Reynolds

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I‘ve yet to fully embrace Graham Reynold’s score to A Scanner Darkly. Its dark, brooding sounds interweaved with Jazzy, almost Avantgarde outbursts make it the perfect match for Linklater’s Sci-Fi art film. But listening to it on its own is another story. Yet I’m still coming back to it consistently. It’s a definite “grower”. The original artwork (#1) made quite a few things right, although someone didn’t think it through to the end. The spacing of the text is different above and below the logo. Also the term “Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” is just a bit too long. That’s a no-go, especially for a movie as visually striking as…

“Knowing” by Marco Beltrami

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After my last monster project Godzilla I need to squeeze in a few smaller ones to cool myself down a bit. And so I started rummaging my iTunes library, listened to soundtracks and picked potential candidates. And it was during one of those listening sessions that I discovered two of Marco Beltrami’s recent, highly recommended(!) efforts Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Soul Surfer. So I thought I’d seize that opportunity and come up with a few designs for a score I wanted to tackle for quite some time. My all time favourite of his works: Knowing. I’d like to begin with a few variations (#2,…

“Godzilla” by Alexandre Desplat

Categories: Alternates/Rejected Covers · Custom Covers · Digital Booklets · Making of · Mockups · Original Covers · Vinyl CoversTags: · 18 Comments

There are only a handful of new soundtracks each year that I want to support with custom album art. I normally pick my choices solely based on the respective directors or composers involved (this year that would be Gone Girl, Interstellar and The Hobbit). It happens very rarely that I encounter a new movie poster and immediately feel the urge to turn it into a custom cover. But it did happen in March with the SXSW poster to Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla. I quite enjoyed his directorial debut Monsters, but the art design for his follow-up project downright blew me away! From the posters campaign to the trailer (and hopefully so to Alexandre Desplat’s…