jeremywarmsley

[jeremywarmsley]

3

I love the game still as it was a calming respite during a rather stressful time in my life. I still enjoy playing it, giving a nice little break with pleasant music (I have Jeremy Warmsley's tracks on my iPhone for listening on the train) and enjoying the feeling of not being sure what's around the corner or over the rise. I don't regret buying this game in the least and I look forward to seeing what you come up with next.

Jeremy did a wonderful job on the soundtrack! 

Thanks for your kind words, really means a lot during post release depression!

[jeremywarmsley]

Wash Club

Ross Sutherland’s brilliant Wash Club (which you may have heard on Short Cuts) is an extraordinary bit of radio, and now it’s a wonderful film directed by Simon Dymond.

Wash Club OST by Jeremy Warmsley

I’ve known Ross for many years, and, having recently worked with him on the impossible backwards palindrome theatre piece Party Trap I was delighted to score this intriguing, dark short film. The piece is about a student journalist investigating a group of hedonists who apparently get their kicks going for a tumble in a washing machine, so I composed with lots of cyclical, repeating muasical sequences on a variety of synthesisers.

[jeremywarmsley]

The Dog Beneath The Skin

Late last year I was asked once more to collaborate with Jimmy Walters of Proud Haddock, director of Mrs Orwell, on another play: Isherwood & Auden's 1935 bonkers satirical classic, The Dog Beneath The Skin. Auden & Isherwood wrote several plays together. In fact, Auden's famous Funeral Blues (which you may remember from Four Weddings) comes from one of their plays. This one, their first, is a real rollercoaster ride - hundreds of characters, a dozen locations, some hilarious banter - and the whole thing in rhyming verse! The play opened in London last week, and tickets are avilable here. My score:

The Dog Beneath The Skin: Musical Interludes by Jeremy Warmsley

Rather delightfully, as well as the usual complement of underscore, I also had the opportunity to set some of Auden & Isherwood's verse to music! Rather dauntingly following in the shoes of Benjamin Britten - one of my very favourite composers... My sole condition was that all the songs should be accompanied by live, real, piano, played by a cast member. Step forward Eva Feiler, who did a sterling job translating my inky scratchings into real music. Unfortunately I don't have good recordings of the cast performing. I have considered recording my own versions but I'm dubious as to how the songs will stand up outside of the context of the play. Watch this space! Shout-out to the rest of the cast, who performed and sang wonderfully: Pete Ashmore, Cressida Bonas, Edmund Digby-Jones, Rujenne Green, Suzann Mclean, James Marlowe and Adam Sopp. And to the tireless crew: assistant director Dale Monie, designer Rebecca Brower, sound director Dinah Mullen, movement director Ste Clough and lighting designer Cat Webb (who's also one of my favourite authors!)

[jeremywarmsley]

VOICES OF BRITAIN TRAILER

And here's the trailer for Voices Of Britain...

Voices of Britain [Trailer] [LowRes] from Alex J Campbell on Vimeo.

[jeremywarmsley]

Eric / Voices Of Britain

Eric / Voices Of Britain by Jeremy Warmsley

BBC 4 / Wingspan Productions commissioned a whole series of short films inspired by the classic 1942 propaganda film Listen To Britain. By chance I happened to be asked to contribute score to two of these films. Funnily enough, they couldn't be more different! The films will be broadcast on BBC4 this Sunday the 24th September at 9pm, but here's a little info: The first is 'Eric', a wonderful character study of a much-loved therapist... who happens to be a border collie. Here's the trailer:

Eric - Listen to Britain 2017 on BBC Four from Florence Kennard on Vimeo.

Directed by the very talented Florence Kennard who I met working on Carnage, this film is a real feelgood treat. Eric actually attended a recent screening of the film at the BFI, but I"m sorry to report he was rather badly behaved - every time the audience applauded the end of one of the short films, he got very excited and started barking. Apparently, as an ex-Crufts contestant, he assumed the applause was for him. Chill out, Eric! The score is minimal but hopefully somewhat effective. I had a lot of fun making a drumkit out of bashing the innards of my piano - in fact almost every sound in the score is made out of different piano treatments. The second film is 'Voices Of Britain', directed by the award-winning Alex J Campbell with assistance from Sam Boullier (a fine filmmaker in his own right!) A chorus of voices from all over Britain talk about their lives and how they feel about their country - about their homes, and about what it is to belong, over a beautiful multi-media collage of footage from every corner of the island. My score had to help glue together these two elements and I thought that a nice way to do that would be to include remixed elements from the most British pieces of music I could think of. So there's a bit of Jerusalem in there, a bit of Jupiter (AKA 'I Vow To Thee...') and some Britten ('Listen To Britten...?') too. It just acts as an atmospheric, subliminal layer rather than anything too intrusive. (Paulstretch to the rescue!) I was also inspired to write a (hopefully) stirring theme for brass which recurs throughout. In other news, Fish Story has been nominated for a Grierson Award!

[jeremywarmsley]

I was delighted to provide original score for MRS ORWELL, a play by Tony Cox directed by Jimmy Walters. This lovely & enlightening period piece gives us a window into the last three months of George Orwell's life, as he convalesces in a London hospital alongside his friend and bride-to-be, Sonia Orwell. The two leads (Cressida Bonas as Sonia Orwell and Peter Hamilton-Dyer as the ailing George) give absolutely incredible performances, the set is beautiful, and Tony Cox's script is witty and erudite - all the more impressive given it's his first play. The play is very intimate and naturalistically performed, so I scored for a small chamber ensemble (wanting to keep the period feel)- some strings, some brass and the barest sprinkle of woodwind. The most important thing was the themes; the play asks some very interesting questions and is all the more interesting for leaving them unanswered, and I wanted the music to reflect that. After a sell-out run at the Old Red Lion, the play has now transferred to the prestigious SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE, where it wil run from the 5th (tonight!) to the 23rd September, 2017. Tickets here.

[jeremywarmsley]

Fish Story soundtrack!

Charlie Lyne's FISH STORY is a delightful tale: a family legend investigated, with some beautiful images, very unusual storytelling, and absolutely no fishy puns (spoilers).

It took us a long time and a lot of false starts to settle on the sound (I have a huge folder of 'Fish Story Out-Takes...) but once we found it the whole soundtrack pretty much just unfolded. The live quintet (piano, guitar, Hammond, bass, drums) sound was a lot of fun to compose for and the constraints actually unlocked some very interesting ideas.

All recorded & mixed at my little home studio in East London.

Thanks to Charlie Phillips & The Guardian for hosting! The film was produced by the brilliant Anthony Ing and Catherine Bray, and the sound mix was by Mike Woolley. It's based on a story by the always fascinating Caspar Salmon.

Audience Prize at the American Film Institute Documentary Festival and Best 19-25 Short Film at the British Film Institute Future Festival.

Fish Story OST by Jeremy Warmsley

[jeremywarmsley]

Jalopy OST released 9th June 2017!

Jalopy Official Soundtrack by Jeremy Warmsley

My soundtrack to Minskworks' sublime driving/survival game Jalopy - 12 tracks of offbeat, quirky, 70s/80s Eastern Bloc synth-y pop-rock - is now on Steam! (You can also get it on BandCamp if you're not on Steam.) 01 Meinen Laika ("My Laika") My Kraftwerk tribute! Thanks to @vie_kafkaienne for language assistance. 02 Lange Reise ("Long Journey") This track and the next are closest to the original brief - the Drive soundtrack if the music supervisors had been forced to pick all the tunes from late 80s German pop radio. 03 Dresdner Automobilclub ("Dresden Driving Club") 04 Harmonikatalas ("Accordionwave" - Yugoslavia patch). I really like the Balkan accordions on this track - I went to an Albanian wedding around this time and the music was a big inspiration! 05 Krugovi ("Circles" - Yugoslavia patch). 06 Dunaújváros Daytripping (Hungary patch) 07 Let's Go For A Drive (Hungary patch) The vocals on this track make me laugh - it was great to be part of a project that didn't take itself too seriously! 08 Plazhen Tants ("Beach Dance" - Bulgaria patch) Had to have some delightfully naff organs on the soundtrack somewhere. 09 Kalkan (Turkey patch) I've played a few concerts in Istanbul and visited a few other times, and I'd love to go back one day... 10 Balkan Girl I Love You! (Bulgaria patch) The title makes me chuckle. 11 Yuva Hatıraları ("Hearth Memories" - Turkey patch) Writing the songs for the Turkey update made me feel a little sad as I knew they were the last tracks I'd write for Jalopy, hence the vocoder refrain on this track. I also really like the dual synth / slide guitar solo at the end of the track - just off the wall enough. Thanks to Ezgi for help with the title. 12 Anthem Zu Lieben ("Anthem To Love") Written after an interminable afternoon of listening to the German pop charts of 1990 and a suitably OTT way to end the OST. By the way, throughout the process, Greg Pryjmachuk (the developer of Jalopy - graphics, programming and design, the dude is a classic triple threat) was a dream to work with. Only ever the most constructive of criticism, and genius-level work ethic & game-creation skills! Shout-out to lovely publishers Excalibur too. <3 Thanks for reading! Enjoy the soundtrack. PS Shout-out to "This guy", "That guy", and "Not this or that guy but another guy".

[jeremywarmsley]

CARNAGE: Swallowing The Past, directed by Simon Amstell Watch it here on BBC iPlayer (UK only)

In March 2016 I received an e-mail from Daniel O'Connor, who had been a producer on Fear Itself (2015), asking if I'd be interested in composing the score for a mysterious project he was working on with a 'very lovely comedian'. I didn't for a second imagine that the project would be a pro-vegan sci-fi documentary – or even that such a thing could possibly exist – but there you go. CARNAGE: Swallowing The Past is a documentary from 2067 showing how Britain became/will become a vegan utopia where fear, hatred and cruelty to animals have been banished. Directed by Simon Amstell, a hero of popular culture for my generation from his appearances on Popworld and Never Mind The Buzzcocks, and the creator of Grandma's House, my favourite British sitcom of the last ten years, it pieces together archive clips both real and fake to tell a very convincing story, and hopefully change a few hearts and minds to boot. As well as scoring in the traditional sense – hitting the beats of the story – I also had to come up with lots of 'fake archive' music for various sequences. One of my favourites was a fake Eurovision song about veganism, which my wife & partner in Summer Camp, Elizabeth Sankey, was kind enough to sing. Another highlight was Amelie's Lament, a song from a musical from the 2020s about the plight of farmyard animals. Simon & I wrote this together in his flat on his piano - which was as funny and surreal an experience as it sounds . The incredible Sam Spiro, who is a brilliant West End musical star & also appears in Grandma's House, did an astonishing performance. We filmed & recorded Sam 'live' at the New Wimbledon Theatre (coincidentally, about a five minute walk from where I went to school) and then I composed all the orchestration on top of Sam's bravura vocals. So what you see in the film is Sam singing live. Simon (who, by the way, is very musical and could probably have composed the song on his own!) felt it was very important for the vocals to lead the emotion of the song. Other highlights from the 'fake archive' sessions included the score for an experimental BBC drama starring Martin Freeman and Eileen Atkins, a puppet show, and a kids' TV show... As for the main score, I had imagined that I'd need to compose lots of futuristic-sounding music that could also underpin the emotional trajectory of the film. I remember in our initial meeting we threw a lot of pretty wacky sci-fi reference points out there, from insect electronica to the avant-pop of PC Music. What we very quickly discovered was the visuals sold the era perfectly and anything too quirky in the music was distracting. 'Make me cry' was Simon's mantra, and I set about trying to do just that. The response has been astonishing! The film sits in such a beautifully understanding position that meat-eaters don't feel patronised or preached at – there are so many laughs along with the very serious message, so it's a lot of fun to watch. But what's really been amazing is seeing vegans talk about it. I believe it's one of the first films to present the vegan cause in such an accessible and humorous way, whilst still being moving and full of facts, and I imagine for vegans it must be really special to have a film that puts you and your beliefs front and centre.

[jeremywarmsley]

swoon

Should be a patch coming in a few hours, for now here’s a preview into Bulgaria - which is still a long way off being finished.

[jeremywarmsley]

Love it!

A suggestion: Fuzzy dice for the car that you can buy at the shop :D

I’d like to add trinkets that can be added to the car. I’m thinking of something like:

Fuzzy dice = increased loot drop rates

Tree air-freshener = better fuel economy / lower fuel prices

Sun air-freshener = longer days

Thinking of having them act like charms or such, still far away from implementing it like this but could be fun. Perhaps have them unlock by doing specific tasks or achievements.

[jeremywarmsley]

Party Trap, a Palindromic Performance Piece

On the 13th September, a new play opens at Shoreditch Old Town Hall in London. Party Trap, directed by Rob Watt, is a perfect palindrome. The first line of the play is the last line of the play, the second line of the play is the second last line of the play, and so on, with a crease in the middle. In the hands of a lesser writer this would be a mere gimmick, but poet & performer Ross Sutherland uses this device to take us into the near-future, a darkly dystopian Britain where the Freedom Party has just outlawed all criticism of politicians. One journalist refuses to turn away from this injustice, and it's around his moral stand that the play revolves. Frankly, it's bonkers and brilliant and I was delighted to be asked to provide score & songs. Since the play is a perfect palindrome, a song which appears in the first half had to reappear in the second half - backwards. Instead of using cheesy backwards instrumentation (not cool since the Beatles, I'm afraid*), the 'backwards' track consisted of the same musical events as the 'forwards' track, but in the opposite order. The lyrics & melody, too, had to appear in the opposite order, and finding a melody that lead on naturally to both the succeeding and preceding phrase was a bit of a stumper, to say the least - but if that sounds bad, spare a thought for Ross, who had to manage an entire play forwards and backwards! The first song is sung by a male character and the second by a female, and Elizabeth was kind enough to step in and provide vocals for my cast demo, which you can hear above. Not quite a new Summer Camp track, but not far off! Tickets are onsale now. I'll be collaborating with Ross again when I score Wash Club, a short film he's written - currently in production. *Radiohead's Like Spinng Plates being an obvious counter-example, and I'm sure there are many more!

[jeremywarmsley]

Beautiful-looking biking game.

Some more animation and driving impressions from our next game. Still some blending issues with multiple animations. Small details: Front shocks are working now. Environment assets are still very much work in progress.

Next saturday: crashes!

[jeremywarmsley]

So here's my first ever videogame soundtrack! I've talked about Jalopy before - it's a driving game set in Eastern Europe right around the fall of the Berlin Wall - June 1990. You can buy the game on Steam (PC users only) right here. It's in Early Access right now, which means it's in an early, incomplete (but deliciously fun) state. Early Access is very cool - it's a bit like crowdfunding - you pay for the game in an early state and the developer uses that money, plus your feedback, to debug and perfect the game. Onto the music! The in-game car has a radio, so the challenge was to make some pieces that felt like they could have been played on the radio in Germany in that period... while simultaneously enhancing, rather than detracting from, the atmosphere. (So no lumpy polka). Because of the meditative nature of this unique survival/RPG/driving game, I knew I wanted the music to be almost transparent - no sudden lurches or anything too in-your-face. The ingame car 'Laika' is as big a character as any of the NPCs you'll encounter. It's based on the real-world East German Trabant car, which has a huge, nostalgic cult following. I thought it would be fun to pen a Kraftwerk-esque ode to this dearly-beloved rustbucket, hence the 'Meinen Laika' track. Kraftwerk of course were big fans of writing songs about their favourite modes of transport... Shout-out to @vie_kafkaienne for German language assistance. (Can's I Want More was also an influence here). Our original touchpoints were the 80s-indebted electronica of the Drive OST and developer Greg Pryjmachuk also referenced the track 'Everlasting' from our last Summer Camp album:

So that was the starting point for 'Lange Reise' and 'Dresdner Automobilclub' - though I tried to push them slightly more towards the kind of thing that might have been heard on the radio at the time. Finally, "Anthem Zu Lieben" was written after a pretty hellish afternoon of listening exclusively to the June 1990 German pop chart. I'll say no more... The tracks were written & recorded at my studio in London. For the game, I applied some heavy radio-ish EQ & car-space reverb, and we play them alongside a track of static bursts, but they are presented here in pristine condition.

(Updated 26/7 with two new tracks from the Hungary update! Heavily influenced by the Hungarian pop charts of summer 1990, but put through a Jalopy filter, as always.)

[jeremywarmsley]

I provided original music for this very beautiful & moving short film, a documentary about displaced people in Sri Lanka directed by Kannan Arunasalam.

You can watch the full film here: https://vimeo.com/161749592.

Film mix & sound design by Peregrine Andrews, who provided the same service for Charlie Lyne’s Fear Itself.

[jeremywarmsley]

London Super Comic Con, Feb 20th-21st

I will be at London Super Comic Convention this coming Saturday and Sunday, February 20-21st. Thus far this is my only confirmed appearance of 2016. I’ll have a selection of minis (original Giant Days, THAT, Expecting To Fly) for sale, plus some old Scary Go Round collections (5 and 8) that I just found in the cupboard. I’ll also be sketching, and this time I am 100% ready for 20+ separate people asking me for “Deadpool”, so long as they are 100% ready for him to be drawn a lot worse than David Aja would draw four tables down. 

If you just want to stop by and get your Giant Days and Bad Machinery comics signed, that’s great too. I look forward to seeing you there.

[jeremywarmsley]

<3

Aivi & Surasshu are finally overcoming shyness! We’re playing our very first show together at AOD in the Bay Area on Saturday, February 13th, 12 PM. Join us on the foyer stage for some piano/chiptune duets and Steven Universe tunes! Please check here for information about AOD. See you soon!