Nosferatu, The Call Of The Deathbird - Vinyle Rouge

Description

The Cinémathèque française in Paris asked me to write and perform the music for the screening of the restored version of Nosferatu. I was a little overwhelmed by the success of the performance. The hall was packed. I had no intention of playing it again, but the audience kept asking me to. At first, the soundtrack was more improvised and reactive to the images, but after a few performances, the audience somehow guided me. Starting with a few notes and slowly building the score to a dark and powerful ending. I found an old 45 record at a market with recordings of extinct birds, which I electronically processed and integrated into the score. By manipulating the sounds of the electric guitar with an alternate tuning, I managed to create a sense of fear, on par with that of Count Orlok's victims. For me, Nosferatu embodies this bird of death, a symbol of the plague. The Black Death depicted in the film offers a timeless parallel with contemporary society. The vampire count Orlok infests the city with rats and the population is contaminated by the plague. Quarantine becomes necessary, causing hysteria. A phenomenon similar to what we experience today. - Jozef van Wissem