Red Cliff Soundtrack

After drumming for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lydia Lunch, and Captain Beefheart in the ’80s, Cliff Martinez went on to become a successful Hollywood composer. His partnership with director Nicolas Winding Refn has resulted in some incredible work in soundtracking for movies such Drive, Only God Forgives, and The Neon Demon — last Halloween we recognized his score for the latter as one of our favorite horror movie soundtracks. The pair are teaming up for again for a project, this time for a new Amazon series called Too Young To Die Old starring Miles Teller, William Baldwin, John Hawkes, and Jena Malone. Teller stars as Martin, “a grieving police officer, who finds himself caught in the Los Angeles criminal underworld where various forces push towards sinister goals.”

Director Steven Soderbergh and composer Cliff Martinez have been collaborating together for over 25 years, but Martinez was shocked when Soderbergh asked him to create the music for his current series on Cinemax, “The Knick.” Set in 1900s New York City, the former rock drummer (Red Hot Chili Peppers) turned one of the most sought-after composers working today was pessimistic about how his electronica-focused sound would work for the show, a period hospital drama set during the turn of the 20th century. Then Soderbergh had Martinez watch a rough cut of the show, which included a temporary score filled with music Martinez created for movies like “Spring Breakers,” “Drive,” and “Contagion.”
“It seemed extremely wrong,” Martinez told Business Insider over the phone…

Perhaps one of the most celebrated soundtracks in the modern classical and ambient communities is that of Solaris by Cliff Martinez. But it’s not all that this former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer is known for. His first film score was composed in 1989 for Sex, Lies, And Videotape, and while working with the same producer, Steven Soderbergh, Martinez produced soundtracks for Traffic (2000), above mentioned Solaris (2002) and Contagion (2011). In 2012 Martinez joins director Robert Redford for a soundtrack to a political action thriller, The Company You Keep.
The fifteen tracks on The Company You Keep create a moody and tense atmosphere ranging from minimal background cinematic themes to building storms in scale, rhythm and volume, in some cases employing a filtered synth bassline for added anxiety…

Quigley Down Under interprets the modern Western score from a distinctly Australian perspective. Basil Poledouris' aw-shucks melodies and quirky arrangements employ French horn, banjo, and clarinet to create a vivid evocation of gunslinger life in the Outback. While Lonesome Dove remains Poledouris' definitive work in the Western arena, Quigley Down Under possesses no shortfall of charm or imagination; its playful approach bubbles with an energy quite uncommon to the genre, avoiding portent and ponderousness to communicate the joie de vivre of its characters and setting. Most impressive is Poledouris' stirring main theme, a bold, oddly funky reinvention of the classic Western fanfare that immediately serves notice that Quigley Down Under is a horse of a very different color.