Venus Ex Machina is a Scottish-born composer and sound designer. In 2021, she won the PRS Foundation Oram Award for innovation in music and sound technologies. Trained as a mathematician, she brings a boundless curiosity and exacting precision to her work, and has performed at festivals across Europe incl. Berlin Atonal, Rewire Festival (The Hague) and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) London. Soon to undertake further academic studies at the National Film & Television School we sat down with Venus to understand the cinematic scores that have inspired her journey thus far….read more
GRADED 06 : RICARDO TOBAR /
Hailing from the seaside town of Viña del Mar, Chile, Ricardo Tobar’s music has undoubtedly instigated a resurgence and an infectious wave of warming analogue sounds across the world whilst showering us with his brand of intensely melodic, shimmering electronica. Drawing inspiration from the composer demi-gods David Lynch, Geoff Barrow and Philip Glass we tapped into Ricardos cerebral cavities to better understand his love of all things cinematic and how exactly has film inspired his art form….read more
GRADED 05 : THE GOLDEN FILTER /
Given their recent score work with Steven Soderbergh and Brian Welsh on Glaswegian rave culture film “Beats” we managed to catch up with Penelope Trappes and Stephen Hindman aka The Golden Filter. Navigating themes such as scarcity of sound in films, diagetics, native instrumentation and the early introduction of synthesizers we lift the hood on the film scores and the soundtracks that have inspired their works to date….read more
GRADED 04 : RROSE /
Taking stock of all the confusion and pandemonium we sat down with a rather calm and reflective Seth Horvitz to discuss the emergence of electronic sound and the moving pictures that have profoundly altered his sound design practices and shaped the inner-workings of his Rrose incarnation….read more
GRADED 03 : CHEVEL /
Citing influences ranging from Zimmer thru Sakamoto, we checked in with Berlin’s own “Weightless” troubadour Chevel (a pioneer of futurism and intricately programmed sound-design himself) to understand the OST’s, and cinematic scores that have both moved and manipulated his career to date….read more
GRADED 02 : HODGE /
Navigating the exhuberant tour schedule and distinct aversion to self-gratification we sat down with Bristol based producer and sound engineer Hodge to extract a chronicle of soundtracks and film scores that have helped influence his career to date, notably his recent trailer for Korean cult film "Believer"….read more
GRADED 01 : PALEMAN /
Despite the recent move to the capital and exhaustive academic schedule we managed to catch up with Manchester-born producer, jazz practitioner and sound engineer Paleman to elicit a compendium of cinematic compositions and filmic scores that have inspired and continue to challenge his practice….read more