Heart of Stone

This movie, starring Gal Gadot as an intelligence operative racing to stop a hacker from stealing its most valuable and dangerous weapon – The Heart – gave me the opportunity to regroup with director Tom Harper, with whom I worked on The Aeronauts back in 2019.

In terms of the music, this one could not have been more different.  Where The Aeronauts was very much a textural, delicate score, this time we discussed wanting the soundtrack to be truly extreme… still melodically driven, but combining the orchestra with drums, guitars, and electronics to create something that hopefully felt like a fresh approach to the genre.  Tom pushed me to simplify and leave space in the music, and to work to find aggressive sounds that could drive the action onscreen.   I worked with the brilliant drummer Freddy Sheed, (who I met when writing the score for Los Frikis… of which more soon), and an army of brilliant musicians, all in London over the course of several months of recording.  Seeking to find even more bite with the brass section, I was introduced to the mighty tubax… a contrabass saxophone that added colour to all of the action sequences, and every sound was pushed to its limits to follow the action.  Amongst this the brilliant performances of my friend and regular collaborator Lisa Hannigan gave the music its heart.

It was a pleasure to work with Tom again.  Reviews were… not kind, but I certainly hope we get to play in the world of Rachel Stone again in the future.