“The Social Network” by Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Various Artists

With The Social Network Trent Reznor’s recent change of style culminated into an astonishing, Golden Globe- and Academy Award-winning musical composition. Together with long-time collaborator and soundtrack composer of his own, Atticus Ross, he inked the film images into an incredibly melancholy, yet restlessly pulsating sound cloud, that pushed the film in a completely different light. Please have a look at this short documentary to see and especially hear the huge impact Reznor and Ross had with their score. With David Fincher at helm of the movie one could assume to get a thoughtful and stylish ad campaign. But looking at…

“BioShock Infinite” by Garry Schyman, Various Artists

Back in March when the game was released, I had already published this post, but with only two covers (#1, #2) online. Yet once again the world wide web gained such a wealth of fine promotion material, it would have been a sin not using it. So without further words, here’s BioShock Infinite. To create a remake of the original cover (#1) was a quick decision. I didn’t like that strange frame they’ve put around the original and the fact, that it wasn’t square just encouraged my decision. My first custom cover (#2) was a sort of byproduct of the remake….

“Drive” by Cliff Martinez, Various Artists

Here are a few custom and original covers for one of my favourite movies in recent time. And probably also one of my favourite soundtracks. Drive and its music form a hypnotic attraction, one can hardly escape. This applies both to the score by Cliff Martinez, as well as the original songs, which were prominently featured in the movie. The official cover (#1) and my alternate custom cover (#2), which is based on the final one-sheet poster, perfectly transport the vibe of the film. Nostalgic, tense, surreal. A neo-noir piece of art, that seamlessly jump through different genres. I also…

“Oblivion” by Anthony Gonzalez, Joseph Trapanese, M83

When I first saw the teaser poster for Joseph Kosinski’s second feature film Oblivion, I immediately knew I would design custom covers for its soundtrack. There are certain colour palettes and temperatures, that draw my attention every time, I can’t help it. The score was composed by M83’s Anthony Gonzalez and Joseph Trapanese and has a few standout tracks, e.g. “StarWaves”, which reminds me of John Murphy’s Sunshine. Or “Radiaton Zone”, which features a drum battle(!) between Loic Maurin and Ilan Rubin. Great Stuff! The custom covers fill the whole range from dead easy to damn difficult. My first entry (#1)…

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” by Howard Shore

My main reason for looking forward to Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit was all the new music composed by Howard Shore. I even was happy about the fact, that suddenly there should be three movies instead of two – meaning that even more music would be composed and released as soundtracks (and probably Complete Recordings) in the wake of the films. Another fun aspect for me of course, was designing custom covers. Looking back at the fun I had with all the The Lord of the Rings soundtracks and it’s various covers, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the…