Easily best known for his mind-bending and utterly fantastic films Primer and Upstream Color,
Shane Carruth is a jack of all trades and master of nearly as many. Carruth directed, wrote, produced, edited, and sometimes shot both films while playing one of the two lead characters in each. Both were done on a shoe-string budget and will fuck with your brain in the most amazing ways. However, this is not a film blog. If you'd like to read more about Shane Carruth the director/producer/actor, check out
A.A. Dowd's interview with him for
Time Out Chicago.
The reason you see Mr. Carruth's name here is because he also composed the soundtrack for both of his films and they're equally astonishing. In what could be described as minimalist ambient, his soundtracks consist of synthetic string chords and sparse piano echoes piling on top of one another in an eery, slightly haunting, and truly beautiful harmony. While the entirety of the
Primer soundtrack is all of 10 minutes,
Upstream Color's score can almost be thought of as a full length album debut for Carruth. And it does not disappoint. Seeing the film is absolutely unnecessary to enjoy the album from front to back, which varies from charmingly peaceful to menacing dismay. However, seeing the film is necessary if you'd like to remain a member of the human race. As for the music, you can check out
both albums on Spotify.
