It's not that the movie is boring. Not at all. It would probably be on a top 100 list of my own personal favorite movies (click here to read my thoughts on the film). Its just that I used to like to fall asleep listening to somewhat soothing music – like Jim Coleman's score for the film of discussion - and at the time I was watching Unbelievable Truth on repeat, the score wasn't available on iTunes (shortly after I discovered the film on DVD, iTunes put out a compilation of music from Hal Hartley's films which included some of the pieces from this film). The DVD menu music for Unbelievable Truth – which was not only one of my earliest iTunes purchases, but the single piece of music that inspired this piece - would play on a continuous loop and put me to sleep...
I don't mean to sound corny but this particular piece of music puts me in the mental state of being in a cozy living room on rainy & intentionally lazy weekend which, coincidentally, is when I used to watch Unbelievable Truth 11-12 years ago in my old Harlem apartment.
Jim Coleman's score for Unbelievable Truth strikes a chord in me because it combines two of my favorite elements from two of my all-time favorite music genres: 80's drum machine programming/sequencing (Hip-Hop) & jangly, haunting, slightly drony guitar riffs (Shoegaze). Hip-hop/rap music definitely ranks first over every other genre of music I listen too but bands like Slowdive, The Sundays & My Bloody Valentine makes up a decent percentage of the music on my iphone as well.
If I had to quickly describe Coleman's production for Hartley's feature film debut to a music savvy person who was unfamiliar with Hartley's film work, I'd sell it as Rick Rubin-era Run DMC drum machine sequencing meets Slowdive. Or maybe early Biz Markie meets Cocteau Twins. I know that may sound incredibly off-putting to some people but this particular film score has both an intentionally cheesy pop sensibility and a dark/depressive quality. Actually, the score for Unbelievable Truth could very well be described as simply Cocteau Twins without the singing and a bit more drum machine stock sounds (in my opinion Cocteau Twins are one of the few bands from the 80's to successfully make a haunting ambiance by combining cheesy-sounding drum machines & sequencers with live borderline post-punk/pre-new wave instrumentation)
Contrary to what some so-called music purists would have you believe, working with a drum machine requires a bit of talent and can be challenging. Its not the most complicated thing in the world but still...
go back to the music at the top of this piece for a moment...
now listen to the drum programming in the beginning of this RUN-DMC song...
when you just focus on the drum/percussion sounds only (along with the rhythm), you'll hear that there isn't much difference between the two. They aren't identical in any way but you can hear the similarities right down to the reverb put on to the snare.
Drum machines – especially drum machines from the 80's which I'm pretty sure Jim Coleman used – are limited in what they can do which means you have to get creative and work around certain limitations to get what you want. Drum machines are not samplers. You can sequence your own drum patterns within the machine and you can tweak the pitch/range of the stock drum sounds that come built in to the machine. But otherwise that's it. You can't import outside sounds and you can't mix and/or master the music directly from the machine. There are pieces of music equipment that can act as a drum machine, sampler, sequencer, mixer & keyboard all in one, but the type of drum machine that I believe Coleman used – which sounds like a Roland 626 or possibly a lindrum (made famous by Rick Rubin, EPMD & Phil Collins) – is a bare bones piece of equipment.
Check out this drum machine demo to get a better understanding (note the snare at 00:27 and how similar it sounds to the snare in the piece of music at the beginning of this write-up)
But the programmed drums are just part of the spine of the score. It doesn't make up the entire body of the music we hear throughout the film. Non-hip-hop/non-electronic based music that utilized drum machines in the 80's used them as skeletal/borderline substitute drummers which is exactly how Coleman used the equipment as well (there are also pieces of the score that utilize actual sampling & live drums).
Some of the most impactful pieces from Unbelievable Truth are simple four bar loops of nothing more than a guitar riff (courtesy of Musician Phillip Reed) and/or casio-sounding keyboard plucks. There's an unappreciated aspect of experimentation in some of the music. Listen to how plucks & random one-hit sounds kind of jump in & out of the skeletal piece of music below...
Unbelievable Truth is definitely an 80's movie (the wardrobe has plenty of acid washed jeans, clunky jewelry & big hair) but it was also on the back-end of the the decade (1989) with a slightly darker/less fun seeming decade approaching in the form of the 90's (the 90's had plenty of cheesiness just like the 80's had a lot of dark shit, but still...). The music in this film captures the embarrassing cheesiness of the 80's (again – we have the drum machine stock sounds to thank for this) mixed with the slightly more depressing less motivated vibe of the approaching 90's, courtesy of the droning dark guitars...
While Hal Hartley didn't do the music for Unbelievable Truth, he's still a talented composer. These days everyone from John Carpenter to Jim Jarmusch receives high praise for not only directing but scoring some of their own films (Jarmusch's band Squirrel did the music for his latest film Paterson) and I always felt like Hartley (aka Ned Rifle) was overlooked as one of the few great director/musicians. Check out the opening credits from Amateur...
If you're curious, you can preview (and possibly purchase) music from Hartley's films directly from his website Possible Films.
But the programmed drums are just part of the spine of the score. It doesn't make up the entire body of the music we hear throughout the film. Non-hip-hop/non-electronic based music that utilized drum machines in the 80's used them as skeletal/borderline substitute drummers which is exactly how Coleman used the equipment as well (there are also pieces of the score that utilize actual sampling & live drums).
Some of the most impactful pieces from Unbelievable Truth are simple four bar loops of nothing more than a guitar riff (courtesy of Musician Phillip Reed) and/or casio-sounding keyboard plucks. There's an unappreciated aspect of experimentation in some of the music. Listen to how plucks & random one-hit sounds kind of jump in & out of the skeletal piece of music below...
(starting around 1:55)
Or listen to how haunting & loopy the music is starting around 00:41...
Unbelievable Truth is definitely an 80's movie (the wardrobe has plenty of acid washed jeans, clunky jewelry & big hair) but it was also on the back-end of the the decade (1989) with a slightly darker/less fun seeming decade approaching in the form of the 90's (the 90's had plenty of cheesiness just like the 80's had a lot of dark shit, but still...). The music in this film captures the embarrassing cheesiness of the 80's (again – we have the drum machine stock sounds to thank for this) mixed with the slightly more depressing less motivated vibe of the approaching 90's, courtesy of the droning dark guitars...
While Hal Hartley didn't do the music for Unbelievable Truth, he's still a talented composer. These days everyone from John Carpenter to Jim Jarmusch receives high praise for not only directing but scoring some of their own films (Jarmusch's band Squirrel did the music for his latest film Paterson) and I always felt like Hartley (aka Ned Rifle) was overlooked as one of the few great director/musicians. Check out the opening credits from Amateur...
If you're curious, you can preview (and possibly purchase) music from Hartley's films directly from his website Possible Films.
