Exclusive Stream of Seth A. Smith’s THE CRESCENT Soundtrack
Jonathan Barkan
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Seth A. Smith
Having premiered at TIFF last year, Seth A. Smith’s The Crescent has been making genre fans itch to see its take on familial grief within a horror context. From the trailer below, there’s a strong indication that the film will join the ranks of Hereditary and Rosemary’s Baby with its surreal visuals and almost claustrophobic tension.
A fascinating aspect of the film is that director Seth A. Smith is also the composer. Utilizing his experience as the singer/guitarist Halifax band Dog Day, Smith employed a wide variety of influences for the score, including church organ records to 1970s space-disco to soundtracks of other esteemed horror titles. If that description intrigues you and you wish you could hear it, today is your lucky day as Dread Central is thrilled to bring you the exclusive full album stream!
Smith tells Dread Central, “Scoring for film is always a fun change from writing pop songs in Dog Day. There’s more room for abstraction. It’s nice to have a visual component to be guided by. I like how you can change the feeling or meaning of a scene with a single note change. For this movie, I was looking for sounds I hadn’t heard before. I played around with voice sampling, time-stretching, granular synths and a bunch of homemade instruments. It was nice to collaborate with others on this too. Nancy Urich and Danika Vandersteen did some sweet singing which really helped lighten the darkness. During the shoot, I put together a small choir of cast and crew to do some improvisational chants. Mostly I just wanted to hear what 25 people hissing sounded like.”
On a personal level, I’ve been listening to the album for few days now and it’s nothing short of entrancing, unsettling, and delightful. It calls to mind Krzysztof Komeda’s work on Rosemary’s Baby where the music shifts from haunting eeriness to almost playful jaunts. While the transitions may seem jarring at first, the full experience brings everything together into a cohesive experience that is hypnotic. This really is something special.
The soundtrack will be released on September 7 via Label Obscura on limited edition marbled vinyl. You can pre-order a copy via Bandcamp.
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