“High-Rise” by Clint Mansell

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Ben Wheatley’s new film High-Rise is a highly stylized, urban dystopia. A parable of greed and class society, at times chockingly funnny, at other times quite thought-provoking. It takes the same line as Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and couldn’t be any more relevant these days, even though the literary original is over four decades old. It is also a prime example of a music album I was immediately interested in solely based on its eye-catching artwork. Of course that statement was only true until I got to know the man behind it… Clint Mansell. I’ve always been a fan of his music – after all I dedicated my very…

“Lost in Translation” by Various Artists

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In retrospect, 2003 was a really strong film year. We got box office hits like Kill Bill, The Return of the King or Pirates of the Caribbean. But also allegedly smaller international films that were even better. 21 Grams by Mexican visionary Alejandro González Iñárritu for example. Or also two of the best Korean films ever: Jee-won Kim’s brilliant A Tale of Two Sisters and the original Oldboy by Park Chan-wook (which interestingly have both been remade into weaker Hollywood versions by now). There was one film however that stood out from the crowd and that was Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. It’s not only an absolutely…

“Firewatch” by Chris Remo

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The official album artwork (#1) for the recently released soundtrack of Firewatch is damn straight perfect. It cleverly combines the two main aspects of the game, which are the all encompassing national park scenery and the highly immersive walkie-talkie narrative. I really like this artwork and would love to know who’s responsible for it, so I could mail them a bagful of Austrian apples. What I do know though is that Olly Moss – creator of Mondo’s legendary Star Wars poster trilogy – was responsible for the spectacular art design of the game and it would totally be a sin not to use it…

“Gods of Egypt” by Marco Beltrami

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Writing in superlatives week after week does detract from credibility. When every other design or album art is amazing, brilliant and what not, it can become tiresome after a while. So maybe that’s the most positive thing about todays entry. That it allows me to balance things out a bit. A wise man once said, the sweet is never as sweet without the sour, and boy is this entry anchored on the sour end of the scale. And I’m not talking about the music here, mind you. After all this is still a blog dedicated to design and the work of visual…

“The Hateful Eight” by Ennio Morricone

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II‘ve had no plans for this one at all. But with The Revenant under my belt I just couldn’t let go of the other snowbound epic from this years winter season. Also it’s a brand-new Ennio Morricone score and you don’t say no to such a thing, do you!? Without any intention of deliberate puns, I’d like to start off this entry with a little warm up round. My remake of the original artwork (#1) was an obvious matter for various reasons. But mainly for the illegible composer’s credits. The alternate take (#2) is not by me, but by my custom covers creating fella Terry McCutchen. Instead of…