Review Summary: A powerful, spiritual experience like no other.
Ambient music is a universal language. Whether you play it in the background while you work, study or fall asleep, or put on headphones and hone in on each intricate detail, it could be the one genre of music that speaks directly to the soul. It is music stripped to its bare elements, with arrangements that build upon the simple noises we hear in our day-to-day lives: rustling leaves, running water, buzzing machinery, and other sounds we often forget to appreciate. I believe that’s why ambient music has the ability to connect with everyone – listening to it is a spiritual experience that transcends any spoken language. It centres us, amplifying any underlying emotions that we are currently feeling, and bringing us closer to the physical world around us.
Mysterious Skin: Music From The Film succeeds at the above purpose more than any other piece of music I’ve heard before.
An amazing film score serves to amplify the film’s themes, plot and character development, but can also stand on its own two legs as a fantastic piece of music. I consider Mysterious Skin to be one of my favourite movies of all time, but I haven’t rewatched it in years because of how intense and graphic it is at times. I’ve listened to Guthrie and Budd’s score countless times since last viewing the film, but still to this day it evokes the same feelings that main characters Neil and Brian feel throughout their journey. The same alienation, the same despair, the same trauma and subsequent path to recovery.
To quote director Gregg Araki, “It was less important for the music to underline narrative action than it was for music to define and authenticate the film for the audience.”
To this day, the song “Snowfall” takes me back to the scene in the film where it is deployed: two teenage characters hanging out at night in an empty drive-in, reflecting on the decisions they’ve made so far in their lives and feeling all the anxieties surrounding their coming of age. The song’s two-minute build up mirrors the contemplation of the protagonists, and the listener experiences the same uneasiness and mystery through the guitar timbre and reverb, which are employed specifically to conjure these emotions. And then, out of nowhere, snow starts falling. It is a moment of catharsis in both the film and the song, with the build-up leading to a sequence of cascading guitar arpeggios that so perfectly put to music the image of snowflakes gently falling on a field. For the three blissful remaining minutes of “Snowfall”, you share the same sentiment as the characters in the film: Hope. Everything is going to be okay.
Even for someone coming across this score who has never watched Mysterious Skin, I believe it has the power to tap into your emotions and gift you a greater understanding of yourself. Harold Budd’s piano motifs on songs like “Brian’s Nightmare” and “The Discovery” place a feeling of dread deep inside the stomach of the listener, which strongly juxtaposes against the more restless and hopeful Robin Guthrie-led moments on “Goodbye To Wendy” and “Loitering”. This duality likely stems from Guthrie’s guitar and Budd’s piano each carrying such a distinct tone and mood, yet so rarely interacting directly with each other on individual tracks. The score is warm and inviting, and yet cold and distant at the same time – this feeling of being at odds with oneself is immediately relatable to anyone who has grown up in a small town, started a new job without knowing anyone else, or lived the queer coming of age experience.
Personally, the film score takes me to two places. The first is a liminal space: I’m walking by a lake and it’s a familiar setting, but I feel alone… nobody else that I know is there with me. Maybe these are actual latent feelings from my youth, or maybe the sonic nostalgia is so powerful that it’s creating memories that never existed. I’m not sure.
The second place is to my best friend’s house, lying on a bed together at 3am while the film score lulls us to sleep. I look around at the four walls surrounding me, at the night sky through the window, and at my friends who I love, and I’m grateful for the music opening my soul and letting me take it all in so richly. I feel closer than ever before.
