In a world where so many people have learned to start working from home the last couple of years(and many still do), the phrase "don't take your work home with you" has become ever more dubious. But what if you could really leave it all at the office -- not just your work, but your memories of doing that work?

That's the eerie premise of Apple TV+'s latest series, Severance, a Ben Stiller-directed corporate satire that imagines a company that allows its employees to undergo an experimental procedure to cleave their memories in twain. One of you, the "Innie," only remembers the time you spent in the office; the other, the "Outie," gets to live their off-work hours blissfully unaware of the stressors or responsibilities of the job.

It sounds nice in practice, but for the Innies who actually work for the Lumon Corporation, it's a special kind of existentialist hell, where all they know are the four white, antiseptic walls of their office. And it's a place that Mark (Adam Scott) and the other three members of his department will have to navigate, as they work to figure out what their real lives are like and discern what they're actually doing for Lumon. Severance is easily one of the best shows of the year thus far, flitting effortlessly in tone between horror and workplace comedy and haunting character drama thanks to Stiller's stylish, unpredictable direction. Aiding the feeling of banal claustrophobia the show engenders is the score by Emmy-nominated composer Theodore Shapiro, who's scored just about every comedy you ever loved in the 2000s (13 Going on 30, Dodgeball, Jennifer's Body). But his versatility really shines through in his work with Stiller, especially here, where the existential emptiness of Lumon, and the Innies' lives in it, is personified by ominous descending piano melodies and mind-mending instrumental distortions. I was lucky enough to sit down with Teddy to talk about Severance, the challenges of TV scoring, stepping out of the comedy wheelhouse, and finding the right, restrained sound for such a complicated show. You can find Ted Shapiro at his official website here. Severance is currently streaming on Apple TV+. You can also listen to the score for Severance on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Endeavor Content. qcLMwdMXGXnrdWZvMjqB

It's safe to say that the world of film music, especially modern film music, owes a lot to Portishead's Geoff Barrow. In a large way, that's due to the instrumentalist and musician's founding of indie label Invada Records in 2001, which placed an early focus on hip hop and experimental acts before pinning down a unique emphasis on releasing film scores.

But he's a prolific film and TV composer in his own right, as he paired with composer Ben Salisbury in the early 2010s for an abortive score to the 2012 film Dredd, which they later released as DROKK. From there, they sailed into an easy partnership with filmmaker Alex Garland, for whom they've scored all of his works since, from Ex Machina to Annihilation to Devs -- sneaky, unsettling scores that use found sounds and minimal instrumentation to convey the alienness of Garland's worlds.

It's an approach that works nicely for one of Netflix's newest shows (now a one-season wonder thanks to the recent news of its abrupt cancellation), the supernatural head-scratcher Archive 81, about an archivist (Mamoudou Athie) tasked with restoring a cache of mysterious documentary footage from a burned-down New York apartment building known as the Visser. From there, he finds himself lured into the viewpoint of deceased filmmaker Melody (Dina Shihabi) and the secrets she unearthed during her investigation. Timelines merge, prophecies are unraveled, and the true nature of the Visser's fate comes into sharp relief. For the podcast, Ben and Geoff were kind enough to talk to me about the origins of their years-long partnership, Geoff's work with Invada Records, and the painstaking but rewarding process for carving out the analog atmosphere of Archive 81. You can find Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow at their official websites. Archive 81 is currently streaming on Netflix. You can also listen to the score for Archive 81 on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Invada Records and Lakeshore Records.

What would you do if you could go back in time and talk to your 12-year-old self? What if you could also see a dead loved one again? For all the whiz-bang action-adventure stuffed into Ryan Reynolds' latest film, The Adam Project, composer Rob Simonsen's score never strays far from those sentimental questions. The next collaboration between Reynolds and director Shawn Levy after last year's Free Guy, The Adam Project follows a time-traveling fighter pilot who flees his dystopian past to crash-land in 2022. And who should he meet but his younger, 12-year-old self, played by newcomer Walker Scobell, who tags along with him on an adventure not just to shake off bad guys from the future who are set to chase him down, but to reconnect with his long-dead father (Mark Ruffalo) and stop time travel altogether. It's a film steeped in the nostalgia-friendly Amblin vibes of the 1980s, evoking everything from Flight of the Navigator to E.T., and that's a throughline Simonsen threads expertly. His is a deceptively simple score, pairing crackling, electronic synths for the high-tech action sequences with the tranquil piano and orchestra of its primary theme -- keeping the CG spectacle grounded in the achingly personal. Easy work for Simonsen, who's proven himself a versatile composer since he came up in the early 2010s with indies like The Spectacular Now and Fast Color. And earlier this year, he primed the pump for the nostalgia well with his score for Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Now, he speaks to me on the podcast today about his early work as a composer, what lessons he learned from mentor Mychael Danna, and the myriad ways COVID complicated the process of scoring this film. You can find Rob Simonsen at his official website here. The Adam Project is currently streaming on Netflix. You can also listen to the score for The Adam Project on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Sony Soundtracks.

Months after he came on the show last (for the COVID documentary In the Same Breath), composer Nathan Halpern has been extremely busy. Just a few weeks ago, he scored three films that premiered at this year's Sundance film festival: the nail-biting thrillers Watcher and Emily the Criminal, as well as the documentary short The Martha Mitchell Effect. But this week, we're talking about a film that premiered at last year's Tribeca Film Festival, one of the best, most under-discussed films of 2021: Josef Wladyka's Catch the Fair One. A pulse-pounding thriller with an activist heart, the film follows a Native American ex-boxer named Kaylee (played by real-life welterweight champion Kali Reis, in an icily intense performance), who pours every inch of herself into trying to track down the people responsible for her younger sister's disappearance. The issue of Native erasure is nothing new, and one that Wladyka and Reis (who collaborated with him on the story) took extremely seriously. Catch the Fair One works like gangbusters as a cold, uncompromising action thriller, to be sure, but it also carries the dehumanizing weight of the past -- a woman sacrificing everything human about her to right a wrong that further Others people like her. Gliding effortlessly along Wladyka's anguished brutality is Nathan Halpern's score, bringing his signature love of drones and tones to the film's atmosphere. Like the ice-blue cinematography and underplayed intensity of its lead, Halpern's work immerses us in the cruelty of Kaylee's world through haunting, hollow electronic sounds and lonely solo brass. Rumbling bass and screeching static punctuate the moments when Kaylee is most put through her paces, leavening only to remind us of the bleak tragedy of her journey. Joining us again on the pod, Nathan talks about how he maintains such a prolific workflow, honoring the Native cultural markers of the story, and worming his way into the psychology of a protagonist that has nothing to lose. You can find Nathan Halpern at his official website here. Catch the Fair One is currently playing in select theaters and on VOD. You can also listen to the score for Catch the Fair One on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records.

Today we're talking to Hollywood Music in Media Awards-winning composer Dara Taylor, best known for her collaborations with composer Christopher Lennertz on a variety of projects, from the Netflix series Lost in Space to the cult 2020 comedy Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar. But her latest solo project is the biggest yet for the young composer - the George Clooney-directed drama The Tender Bar.

Based on the memoir by J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar is a coming-of-age story about a young writer (Daniel Ranieri as a child, Tye Sheridan as a young man) growing up in 1970s Long Island. With an absentee father and little to do, he spends much of his childhood at the bar his Uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck) owns, absorbing the man's homespun wisdom through the cigarette haze of the past. It's a sleepy tale soaked in hazy nostalgia, leading Dara Taylor down a stripped-down approach sufficed with plaintive guitars and pleasant piano. Her sound accentuates the film's ever-present '70s soundtrack, weaving through needledrops from Jackson Browne and Steely Dan without clashing with it. I spoke to Dara about the incredible opportunity this prestige awards-season drama presented her, the challenges of working within an assignment so heavy on source music, and the long, challenging road it takes for a composer to get to this level. You can find Dara Taylor at her official website here. The Tender Bar is currently streaming on Prime Video.

For the next few weeks, we'll be highlighting some of the scores and composers we really liked out of the 2022 Sundance International Film Festival. First up is Something in the Dirt, the latest from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who've made a cottage industry out of scintillating low-budget sci-fi and supernatural horror. Along with the ride for most of their endeavors has been longtime composer and friend Jimmy LaValle, for whom this is his fourth collaboration with the pair. Something in the Dirt follows John and Levi (played by Benson and Moorhead), two strangers who meet after one moves into the other's Laurel Canyon apartment complex. They're both loners, drifters, folks with mysterious pasts who have their own unique relationship to the city of Los Angeles. But they're thrown together by circumstance one day when the two start witnessing some supernatural occurrences in Levi's apartment; thrown together by opportunity and boredom, they start documenting their findings. What follows tosses them down a conspiratorial rabbit hole that includes wormholes, alternate dimensions, and gravitic anomalies, while the lines between narrative and documentary become increasingly blurred. In keeping with his house style for the pair, LaValle (an LA-based musician who also performs with his band The Album Leaf) keeps to isolated, eerie synths and unsettling pulses to convey the unsettling nature of what John and Levi are discovering. But he also expands his palate with woodwinds and organs to convey the clashing nature of John and Levi's polarizing personalities. Plus, the COVID-era circumstances led to an especially innovative process for the DIY filmmakers, which LaVelle was along for the entire ride. On this week's podcast, Jimmy talks to us about his long-time collaboration with Benson and Moorhead, how COVID aided and abetted this particular project, and the ways he flexed his own musical muscles for Something in the Dirt. Plus, LaValle offers commentaries for three tracks from the score: "Math Teacher," "The Symbol," and "No Light Source." You can find Jimmy LaValle and The Album Leaf at their official website here.

When one thinks of most modern film scoring, we're in an interesting realm of experimentation and innovation -- one less defined by the traditional symphonic orchestras of John Williams and James Horner and more by the electronic and textured influences of Hans Zimmer and his coterie. Normally, Oscar-nominated composer Daniel Pemberton operates in the latter realm, thinking outside the box on scores ranging from Ridley Scott's The Counselor to Into the Spider-Verse and beyond. But for Being the Ricardos, his fourth collaboration with acclaimed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (third with Sorkin as director), Pemberton goes back to basics for a much more classical score than we're used to hearing from him. Following a particularly tumultuous week in the life and career of Lucille Ball (played by Nicole Kidman), Being the Ricardos sees the I Love Lucy star navigating a series of controversies, from a particularly stubborn comedy bit on her hit sitcom to the tensions between her and husband/co-star Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem), to media rumors that she's a registered member of the Communist Party. To fit the sweeping nostalgia (and bittersweet flaws) of its 1950s Hollywood setting, Pemberton's crafted a score replete with an overarching main theme that encapsulates the sadness and struggles of Ball's attempts to carve out a place for herself in a male-dominated Hollywood. Coupled with percussion-heavy cues that sell the fast-talking, fast-moving pace of Sorkin's dialogue, it's a score that's refreshing in its old-fashionedness. Today, Pemberton calls in from London over Zoom to talk to us about creating the score to Being the Ricardos, working with Sorkin, and the restrictions and opportunities that come with traditional scoring. You can find Daniel Pemberton at his official website here. Being the Ricardos is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video. You can also listen to the score for Being the Ricardos on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Lakeshore Records. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thespool

This week, we're looking at Netflix's latest awards contender, The Lost Daughter, the directorial debut of Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Jessie Buckley, and Ed Harris. Based on the 2006 novella of the same name by Elena Ferrante, the film follows a middle-aged literature professor named Leda (Colman) as she attempts to spend a relaxing summer holiday on a Greek island. But her stay is interrupted by anxieties from both the present and past, as her connection with a young mother also on vacation (Johnson) brings back bad memories of her own past as a parent.

It's a scintillatingly hazy character study, aided by Gyllenhaal's deliberately disorienting direction and career-best performances from Colman and Buckley (as a younger version of Leda). But in keeping with that sense of airy time, composer Dickon Hinchliffe (Leave No Trace, Winter's Bone) called upon a '60s, '70s pop sound that plays with and contrasts with Leda's brittle, brutal honesty. Starting from a lush, Motown-esque title theme for its main character and crawling through moments of unnerving tension with double bass and strained strings, it's a perfectly appropriate score for a film about a woman trying (and failing) to escape her own emotional chaos. A multi-instrumentalist and founding member of the British band Tindersticks, Hinchliffe started his composing career when Claire Denis tapped the band to score her film Vendredi Soir. From there, he's scored nearly 40 films and episodes of television, bringing a deeply textured, mysterious sound to each project. Together, we talk about his transition from pop to film composing, the vintage '60s instruments he used for his latest score, and finding the true sound for The Lost Daughter's mercurial protagonist. You can find Dickon Hinchliffe at his official website here. The Lost Daughter is currently streaming on Netflix. You can also listen to the score for The Lost Daughter on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Maisie Music Publishing.

This week, we're talking to David Newman, son of acclaimed composer Alfred Newman and a proud member of a film music family that includes brother Thomas Newman and cousin Randy Newman. He's a prolific and legendary composer and conductor who's scored more than 100 feature films and television shows. You may know his work from films like Serenity, the live-action Scooby-Doo films, and most notably, his iconic score to Galaxy Quest.

But his latest project isn't to compose a new original score, but to play musical steward for Steven Spielberg and writer Tony Kushner's adaptation of one of the most celebrated musicals of all time -- Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story. Rather than reinterpret Bernstein's timeless score for Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner's new adaptation of the film, Newman used his lifelong experience with the musical (and familiarity with the Bernstein estate) to craft something that fit Spielberg and Kushner's updates to the script, choreography, and story, while keeping the essential spirit of those classic tunes alive. Today, Newman joins me to talk about his relationship to West Side Story, what they changed (and didn't change) in his new arrangement, and more. You can find David Newman at their official website here. West Side Story is currently playing in theaters; if you're vaxxed, boosted, masked, and feel comfortable going, please go for it. You can also listen to the soundtrack on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of 20th Century Music.

Refugee narratives are a common one in documentary, but Jonas Poher Rasmussen's Flee is something unique. Telling the story of one of Jonas' childhood friends, a gay Afghan refugee named Amin, Flee charts its subject's childhood in Afghanistan, the circumstances by which he had to leave. Fleeing to Denmark without the rest of his family, he was left all alone to figure himself out -- not just his sexuality, but his identity as well.

Told in striking, minimalist animation, both depicting interview segments with Amin and dramatized tales of his past, Flee feels like a hazy recollection of a traumatic history, both of the Middle East and its protagonist. But for all its applicability to real-world politics, its scope remains deeply personal -- how seismic global events rippled throughout Amin's life, and looking wistfully at how they made him the man he is today. Equally evocative as the animation is the score, courtesy of prolific Swedish composer and multi-instrumentalist Uno Helmersson. Experimental and unobtrusive, yet completely in line with its subject's interiority, Uno's dense, layered cues float around the film's periphery to lend voice to things Amin leaves unsaid -- about himself, about his love life, and so much more. And now, Helmersson joins us in the studio to talk about Flee and his lifetime of work in film and television music. You can find Uno Helmersson at his official website here. Flee is currently available in theaters. You can also listen to the score for Flee on your preferred music streaming service courtesy of Milan Records.