The Melancholy Tide

This album is based on the soundtrack I composed for the experimental film ‘The Melancholy Tide’ - directed by Anita Lee and Alexander Leeway

Anita and I had been in conversations about the soundtrack for Melancholy Tide since 2018 and over time had seen the brief go from quite a classical and organic sounding piece to something atmospheric, experimental and abstract.

The album ‘The Melancholy Tide’ is a reflection of the development of the score - starting from the first initial sketches (1.High Tide) to where we ended up with the score (2.The Melancholy Tide) to my own experimentation on the score (3.Swell) which integrates more of my typical no-kë sounds into the original soundtrack.

Although each piece is quite unique, I hope the listeners can hear the common themes and melodies between each track and see how the score has developed.

You can watch the film here: vimeo.com/599294983


High Tide - The original idea for ‘The Melancholy Tide’.

In our initial discussions Anita and I talked about an emotional piece centred on a small string ensemble and piano. Original influences for Melancholy Tide included music by Abel Korzeniowski, in particular his score for ‘A Single Man’. The piece starts off softly, with light pads and sting harmonics. As the piano enters the piece begins to build in momentum, featuring staccato strings that layer upon each other. The piece climaxes with a soaring cello melody, before resolving to the soft, atmospheric textures of the opening.

The Melancholy Tide - The soundtrack for the film.

The original brief on the music changed a lot to become more abstract, atmospheric, experimental and almost distorted. We almost wanted the music and the sound design to blend together and almost become indistinguishable. Despite the change in direction, I still wanted to keep elements from our original sketch and so a lot of the material in the score is derived from High Tide. I integrated motifs from High Tide by distorting and adding effects to the strings to make them more atmospheric and textural and just recognisable as originating from an organic source. The most obvious element linking the two pieces together is the cello melody which comes in towards the end of the film and lifts the piece to a more positive ending from an ominous start.

Swell - Melancholy Tide X No-kë

Upon finishing the score for Melancholy Tide I felt the urge to experiment a bit more with the soundtrack and see how it would sound with more momentum from the strings and modern production (Beats). The piece begins in the same way as the score, however I’ve blended more of the violin harmonic figures from the start of High Tide into the opening. As the beat comes in, more elements from the original sketch start to build (col legno strings, cello melody, staccato strings, piano melody) creating a bigger textural build of strings, synths and beats compared to the original score. As usual with my No-kë tunes, the piece ends quietly on the piano chords that started the whole album.