“It’s not rare for me to cry while making music”
BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE FOR LEVEL AND GAIN When ROB (Robin Coudert) signed on to compose the score to The Bureau (Le Bureau des Légendes), he […]
Level and Gain
‘The Killing’ composer Frans Bak releases new music on his childhood piano
BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE FOR LEVEL AND GAIN As composer of the hit TV series The Killing, Frans Bak is considered a pioneer of “Nordic noir”. […]
“To be a Hollywood composer, you need to be a powerful entrepreneur”
BY ANGELO VALDIVIA FOR LEVEL AND GAIN There aren’t many composers who fluidly work between video games and Hollywood, but Penka Kouneva has firmly entrenched herself among […]
Could this film about taxidermy bring you the joy you’re seeking today?
BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE FOR LEVEL AND GAIN Joy is the last thing you might think about when considering dead animals being stuffed. Taxidermy is certainly […]
The roguish fun of Untitled Goose Game is “definitely something we could all use right now”
BY CHRISTOPHER LEON FOR LEVEL AND GAIN How do you compose a game in which the main character has only one word (“honk!”), and there […]
Jason Graves: “People think of scary music whenever they hear my name”
BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE FOR LEVEL AND GAIN Jason Graves says his name is synonymous with scary music. And with a list of credits to this […]
Howard Shore explains how he composes his fantasy worlds
BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE FOR LEVEL AND GAIN The Lost Prince is a film for anyone who has ever been a parent or a child. The French […]
Composer Alex Baranowski pays homage to his family in this post-WWII film about the children
BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE FOR LEVEL AND GAIN For Alex Baranowski, The Windermere Children wasn’t an ordinary scoring project. Though the BBC/Wall to Wall production may have presented […]
An entirely casual chat with Stranger Things composers Kyle and Michael
BY CHRISTOPHER LEON WITH LEVEL AND GAIN You may not have heard of Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein, but you would undoubtedly know their music. […]
“Don’t allow the industry to put you in a box” says composer-producer James Edward Barker
BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE FOR LEVEL AND GAIN Writer, producer, or composer? James Edward Barker didn’t settle for just one of these career paths. Rather than […]