Now watch the full motion picture: https://vimeo.com/174568861
A wobbly detective mixtape to celebrate the release of a wobbly detective film.
A note from UNIVERSAL EAR project manager Graeme Cole:
“Here is a mix of songs that inspired another movie in which I and a few UNIVERSAL EAR collaborators were involved: absurdist Sarajevo detective flick "Epizoda ?".
I've shared this collection before, but I've now put the film online to watch for free, so thought it was about time to cobble together an all-in-one mix. If you like detective shows, BOY-OY-OY are you going to dig around 1/3 of this jam.
The music herein falls roughly into three, sometimes overlapping, categories:
1. Cop-show sounding library music. Library music, for the uninitiated, starts life as albums of (almost) anonymously created generic recordings for TV producers to listen through and license for their shows. It's cheaper than commissioning freshly-composed music. Library music is actually kind of a cult phenomenon. Thousands of hours of ultra-generic (but often stunningly good) music like this exists out there, much of that music forever lost or stranded in forgotten regional TV archives. if you fancy going down that rabbit hole then please do: you might start by searching "Bruton Music" or "Simon Park" - the author of no less than three tunes in this mix, each of which inspire their own peculiarly English imaginary murder show. I dare say you'll hear significantly more about library music when Harley Byrne turns his horn in that direction.
2. Broken/hauntological music. Recordings that bear their scars and bare their souls. Epizoda ? is a ghost media detective story, and the light is intended to shine through its glorious cracks, the medium is the mess. Some of these songs don't know whether they're the symptoms of our culture or the disease itself. They turn in on their own materials in perversely sentimental ways that remind us of something we can never quite put our finger on. Damn!
3. Glassy and watery music. Some of these tracks were inspiring purely for the limpidity of their tones. Is limpidity a word? We used rain-dampened roads, VHS rot, baby blue metallic paint jobs, and tears (among other things) to create a certain shimmery fragility in Epizoda ?. These musicians used their own secret tools. (Glockenspiels, probably).
Somewhere in that mess of categories, you'll also find Dino Santaleza's official soundtrack for Epizoda ? itself. Thanks Dino! Sorry we mashed up your composition!
To give fair warning, the first 33 minutes of the mix are just dandy. Listen to them and send in your ideas for a new detective show on the back of a postcard. But then things get a bit more hardcore. First, half an hour of James Ferraro's Last American Hero - actually, pretty blissful to listen to (I used to sleep to it) if you can get into its warped nostalgic loops. This was really the biggest outside influence on Epizoda ? but might ruin brunch with your Gran if she prefers Ferraro's more accessible mid-career stuff.
But right after Ferraro comes Terry Riley's Nogood. Are there any Terry Riley fans in the group? Maybe you can step up and school me/us in the comments. I don't think I've listened to this all the way through more than once. But it is a fabulous artefact and its existence played its part in shaping Epizoda ?. If you listen all the way through, you'll reach Ferrante & Teicher's "Crystal Fingers" (Category 3), which is like a douche for the ears.”
