BWAAAAAAAAAAA​AAAAAAAAAAAAAM
December 8, 2016 10:39 AM   Subscribe

 
It's good to see the Kagel shoutout in the writeup, and I hope his work (and peers like Gaburo and Lucier to pick two other names out of a hat) continue to be echoed in the future's music.
posted by idiopath at 10:53 AM on December 8, 2016


This is the danger of BRAAAM-style minimalism: not bad soundtracks, but bad filmmaking. These scores can flatter us into believing that what we’re seeing requires careful attention, when in fact it’s really just the music that reads as prestigious. Thanks to the way their sound has evolved, they have tremendous power to suggest portent, mourning, and gloom, when the film itself is just punch-drunk on an unearned sense of its own sophistication. Any soundtrack can sucker us into hearing bad music; BRAAAM at its worst can sucker us into seeing bad films.


QFMFT
posted by hippybear at 10:57 AM on December 8, 2016 [5 favorites]


kind of amazed that I can't quickly find a mix of "O Fortuna" with BRAAAAAM on the downbeat
posted by thelonius at 11:08 AM on December 8, 2016 [8 favorites]


Can we get a machine that makes that noise to follow Tr*mp around everywhere he goes so that it plays whenever he steps up to a podium, steps off of a jet, or sends a tweet?
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:12 AM on December 8, 2016 [5 favorites]




Devils Rancher: "Can we get a machine that makes that noise to follow Tr*mp around everywhere he goes so that it plays whenever he steps up to a podium, steps off of a jet, or sends a tweet?"

How about a tape of babies crying in reverse instead.
posted by boo_radley at 11:23 AM on December 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


Great article!
posted by intermod at 11:29 AM on December 8, 2016


I always enjoyed the KRANG style noise of Jango Fett's mine

That always pissed me off because what exactly is he vibrating to create a sonic boom in the vacuum of space?
posted by Twain Device at 11:33 AM on December 8, 2016


I almost feel like Star Wars doesn't hew to a hard sci-fi alignment.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 11:45 AM on December 8, 2016 [4 favorites]


It's a tuba revolution.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:47 AM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


I thought that noise was a foghorn -- evocative because terrifying in context. (Context is: I should have come ashore already, and the big boat is hoping not to kill me but wevs.)

"The patterns, repetitions, and structures of minimalist music seem to cut to something these films want to say, but that they lack the means to communicate. The question is of course if they really ought to rely on their music to do the talking for them."

This seems unfair. Forms that have both sound and images can rely on either, as far as I'm concerned; it's independent of whether they're good examples or not.
posted by clew at 11:48 AM on December 8, 2016


c.f. movies that have more orange and blue than the Auburn/Florida game...
posted by randomkeystrike at 11:52 AM on December 8, 2016


I always thought of it as a dubstep version of the Jaws theme.
posted by mannequito at 12:03 PM on December 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


Uh, some kind of description for this FPP would have been nice.
posted by agregoli at 12:04 PM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


seriously?
posted by entropicamericana at 12:38 PM on December 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


BRAAAAM is incorrect. It's BWAAAAAH. Dissent will not be tolerated.
posted by esoterrica at 12:51 PM on December 8, 2016 [5 favorites]


I'm still getting accustomed to the "Law & Order DONK DONK" myself.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:56 PM on December 8, 2016


"Dissent will not be tolerated."

*cut to scenes of torture each one second long, each one with a separate BRAAAM*
posted by hippybear at 12:57 PM on December 8, 2016


It's like BRAAAM is the new Dies Irae!
posted by demonic winged headgear at 1:05 PM on December 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


That noise in the frat house?

BRAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 1:19 PM on December 8, 2016


Take the Wilhelm scream. Stretch the time out quite a ways. Pitch shift it down a couple octaves. Layer a bass drum hit right at the start. Add a touch of reverb and a slow fade out. And maybe you'll have another overused cliche for soundtracks.
posted by njohnson23 at 2:17 PM on December 8, 2016


This picks up on something I've suspected for a while...that the current soundtrack style of low-melody, percussion and effect heavy music is at least partially driven by iterative and frequent digital film editing. It's much harder to fit melodic content into a film which is full of rapid cuts, and which is being continually re-edited throughout its development.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:47 PM on December 8, 2016 [5 favorites]


I saw a video a while back which dug into that idea.
posted by ckape at 5:53 PM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm still getting accustomed to the "Law & Order DONK DONK" myself.

As an NYC resident that sound was very familiar to me the first time I heard it. It's the resonant clanging of a car riding over a loose manhole cover.
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:31 PM on December 8, 2016 [1 favorite]




I tend to associate that sound with the Reapers.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:21 PM on December 8, 2016


"BRAAAM doesn’t have a clear home either in the world of music"

Sail
posted by eye of newt at 12:37 AM on December 9, 2016


Yes, Zimmer is unsubtle, but occasionally he knocks it out of the park.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:29 AM on December 9, 2016


huh, I thought it was originally composed by BRAAHHHHMMMS

thank you! I'll see myself out.
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:40 AM on December 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


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