Independent Music

Michael Andrews knew Jim Juvonen from way back. Juvonen knew that his friend was a name to watch and was an interesting musician and writer who could bring something to the movie. Michael had co-scored the Ben Stiller movie Zero Effect with The Greyboy Allstars, and worked on the music for hip TV show Freaks And Geeks. But he had never done a score entirely on his own. In early 2000, Juvonen gave Michael a copy of the script for the as-yet-unmade Donnie Darko. As had happened across Hollywood, Michael was blown away by Richard Kelly's idea. "Everyone knew Donnie Darko was going to be a cool movie," Michael recalls. "Everyone knew it was interesting." Kelly, for his part, was aware of Michael's work with The Greyboy Allstars, a soul-jazz-funk band based in California. He also knew that Michael made music under the name Elgin Park (his nom-de-guitar in the Allstars). Michael hadn't mentioned was an in-demand songwriter and producer who had worked with Brendan Benson and DJ Greyboy as well as producing both Gary Jules albums. Debutant director and debutant solo soundtrack composer decided to collaborate.

Kelly gave Michael a two-and-half-hour version of Donnie Darko and Michael began writing. He wrote the opening track, Carpathian Ridge. In the completed film, this would be a jaw-dropping first moment: a lifeless body on a high, winding road, the sun coming up, keyboards delicately breaking like over the dawn landscape, fingers of piano drifting down the mountain. Magical stuff.

Michael relocated from San Diego to LA to do the bulk of the work. He wanted to be close to Kelly. Nearly every night from October to December 2000, the filmmaker would come over to Michael's little home studio to brainstorm. Slowly, music emerged. Like the film, it was evocative and otherworldly, full of open-ended intrigue, but not airy-fairy or vague. "The film was also pretty low budget so my portion of the money was pretty thin. I couldn't hire anybody, it was just me. I played everything: piano, mellotron, mini marimba, xylophone, ukelele, organ. I also brought in two female vocalists, Sam Shelton and Tory Haberman. But no guitar 'cause Richard said no guitars or drums; he just wasn't into it. I was down with that - I've played guitar my whole life." So Middlesex Times has pizzicato strings and ethereal flute. Liquid Spear Waltz, one of the first things Michael ever wrote on piano, is a dainty, smiley number, reflecting Donnie's bemusement in the film at seeing shafts of light exiting people's bellies. Throughout, sweeps of female backing vocals embellish Donnie's gently off-kilter daydreams, while recurring mordant stabs of strings and synthesiser throbs reinforce the increasingly fatalistic terror of his nightmares. "I come from a songwriting background so those little instrumental themes are little songs. I wrote four or five little ditties in the same character. I really wanted to bring an added emotional depth to the movie. Bring a little more warmth, but still maintain a mystery."

When Donnie Darko opened in the US it died at the box office but slowly became a modern cult hit. Cinema-lovers' obsession with this grim fairy tale/art thriller extended to an enthusiasm for the soundtrack. In the absence of a Soundtrack album, a friend of Michael's, Andy Factor, released the score including "Mad World" on his upstart label, Everloving Records. Then Donnie Darko opened in Europe and received a completely different reception. Hailed as one of the best films of the year, Donnie Darko grossed more at the UK box office alone than in the whole of the US. The score, due to legal issues, remained extremely difficult to track down outside of the U.S. Now, with Donnie Darko one of the top selling DVDs of 2003, a British label has come to the rescue. They heard Mad World, loved the film, and hunted down the music.

"Films that assume cult status - they ask questions instead of answer them, and that's one thing Donnie Darko does," says Michael. "And it has an incredible look to it, a richness and colour. And Rich wrote a great script and made an incredible directorial debut. We had a unique vibe, referential but also new. For both of us it was our first film, so maybe there was a naivety that manifested itself as something original."

As for Mad World, Michael Andrews said they could have done any number of songs from Tears For Fears' album The Hurting. But in the end Mad World, from the title down, was the one. "That self-absorbed adolescent angst, all sad and morose - it was perfect for that climactic moment in the film."

Check out the artist's website:
http://www.everloving.com

Track List:
1. Carpathian Ridge
2. The Tangent Universe
3. The Artifact & Living
4. Middlesex Times
5. Manipulated Living
6. Philosophy of Time Travel
7. Liquid Spear Waltz
8. Gretchen Ross
9. Burn it to the Ground
10. Slipping Away
11. Rosie Darko
12. Cellar Door
13. Ensurance Trap
14. Waltz in the 4th Dimension
15. Time Travel
16. Did you Know Him?
17. Mad World
18. Mad World (remix version)

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