On the first few listens, I was not the biggest fan of Daniel Pemberton’s soundtrack for Project Hail Mary. I felt it was too ‘chorally?’ … vocally?… and stole too much from Max Richter which, while I like some of his soundtracks/music, don’t love them all of them and and so, just didn’t think the album fit the nature of the film enough upon first listen – but as you all know dear readers, listening to soundtracks is one of my favorite things to do while working and gave it a bunch of chances, and after seeing the movie in theaters again (which I of course, highly recommend), found it was good. It’s passable, it fits decently enough. It’s not a Hans soundtrack, although you can hear some Interstellar TIME references from Daniels’ ‘Time Go Fishing’ fishing, it’s not a Ludwig soundtrack, but it’s still good for a new artist to me – i’m willing to go back and listen when i’m the mood to mentally revisit the movie in my mind while working, which i couldn’t say upon on the early listens. Curious if any of his other works are equally decent – Spider-Man: Across or (Into) the Spider-Verse , or King Artur – but on the whole, the soundtrack didn’t take away from the film and landed perfectly at some points. This is what i’ve been listening to this week. It’s been enjoyable.
Per wikipedia, i do appreciate this:
Pemberton used physical instrumentation and samples rather than synthesizers for much of the score, desiring to make the music sound personal and connect with audiences emotionally despite the film’s wide science fiction scope. He utilized “body percussion” by recording clapping and stamping sounds from sixteen people to simulate complex drum machine patterns, employed cristal baschet, ondes martenot and glass harmonica for textural elements. He also included large choral components. Pemberton also recorded a “leaky, squeaky tap” in a friend’s house using an iPhone, which was sampled in the score.
And just because Rocky is the best…
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