Part 1

Name: Patricia Wolf
Nationality: American
Occupation: Musician, producer, sound designer, DJ
Current release: Patricia Wolf's new album Hrafnamynd, the soundtrack to Edward Pack Davee's experimental documentary, is out via Balmat.
Recommendations for Portland, USA: Since we are talking about films, I recommend that you see something good at Hollywood Theatre. The programming and atmosphere there is incredible. I’m so grateful for their presence in our city. Afterwards you should have a drink at the new David Lynch inspired bar called Bar Hollywood right next door.

If you enjoyed this Patricia Wolf interview and would like to know more about her music and upcoming live dates, visit her on Instagram, Soundcloud, bandcamp, and substack.

For a deeper dive, read Patricia's thoughts on the Novation Summit.



Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in film music as well?

I am one of those people who gets really locked into the emotions and atmospheres of films and needs to decompress afterwards. Music and sound make that connection to the characters and the setting in a story deeper for me.

It’s hard for me to give a thorough answer on which films planted the seed for my interest in film music because there have been so many. My first thoughts go, when I think about what my favorite films were as a kid, to Legend and The Neverending Story.



Upon reviewing both of those soundtracks, I can see clearly how my taste for synthesizer music was shaped.

The music in both of those films is so iconic and while the films themselves are incredible in every other way as well, it’s undeniable that the music greatly enhances the experience for the viewer.



Which composers, or soundtracks captured your imagination in the beginning? What scenes or movies drew you in through their use of music?

It’s impossible for me to cite them all properly. There are many. I’ll try to give some examples on a wide variety of styles.

I have to shout out Angelo Badalmenti for all the work he did with David Lynch. I love how deeply connected the two of them were throughout the whole process and how much respect, understanding, and trust there was between them. It really comes through.



I love Howard Shore’s work with David Cronenberg and The Lord of the Rings. I watched the entire making-of documentaries from the expanded edition of Lord of the Rings and it is mindblowing how innovative the whole film project was.

In the section about the soundtrack, I learned that Howard Shore had impossible deadlines to get his score written and recorded. It’s amazing how good the work is especially with how little time he had. Maybe sometimes pressure like that can really bring out our best, but he’s one of the greats so it should be no surprise. I just can’t imagine the stress he must have been under!

Not only is Howard Shore’s work deeply emotional but every detail is perfectly suited to the fantastic settings and drama. It makes watching the film a fully immersive psychological experience.

[Read our Howard Shore interview]



Ryuichi Sakamoto’s scores are stunning. I love his work on The Revenant.

I am just the biggest admirer of all of his music.



[Read our Alva Noto interview which also covers his contribution to The Revenant]

I love White Lotus and I love what Cristóbal Tapia de Veer created for that show. His music makes everything even more bizarre and fun. It really enhances the atmosphere and underscores the tension between the characters.

Adam Curtis’ documentaries always have such amazing music, too! I think the music choices, clever editing, and unconventional storytelling style in his films is crucial because it helps important political and historical topics that might be boring to many folks in a more conventional documentary context become fascinating stories that explain why things are the way they are today.

He really cracked the code for getting heady information to be more digestible for a larger number of people.



Hildur Guðnadóttir’s work on Tar and Chernobyl is so powerful and haunting. Perfectly suited to the heavy themes of these films.

[Read our Hildur Guðnadóttir interview]

Daniel Blumberg’s score for The Brutalist is brilliant. His whole approach of composing the pieces for the film and then traveling around to various places with field recording equipment to record the performances of what he wrote in interesting spaces, live on set performances, as well as improvisations by various musicians in their homes and studios is just super cool. It must have been a lot of fun to work that way.

I am so curious about how he managed to fulfill the practical constraints for each scene doing it this way, but whatever he did it really worked and served the film so well. He must have given great direction to the musicians that he worked with. Maybe he recorded enough material to test against the film so that the right music could be placed for each scene? Brilliant!

[Read our Daniel Blumberg interview]



The music in Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie’s The Curse by John Medeski and Daniel Lopatin was really fun and was effective in adding to the weirdness of that show.

What were your very first active steps writing film music and how would you rate the gains made through experience - can one train/learn being an artist?

The first steps for me would be my work composing music and doing the sound design for a couple of video games that friends were involved with. It was such an important experience that put my compositional skills to the test.

I learned a lot from those experiences and I know that it helped prepare me for working on Hrafnamynd. It’s one thing to make music for your own self expression but it’s an entirely different thing to fulfill the storytelling vision of a director or game creator and do it in your own unique voice as well.

One thing I learned early on is the importance of finding a common language between the musician and the director. Music can be hard to talk about because there are so many aspects to it. It’s emotional, there are so many styles and genres, what a mood sounds like can vary a lot from person to person. There’s also specialized terminology for both music and film that needs to be learned or explained.

We all have different reference points. It’s important to have many meetings with the director before you start working. It’s nice to watch the film together and get notes on where the music is needed and what the director hopes the viewer will feel in those scenes. It’s also good to get a mood board playlist from them to help you understand the style, tone, and pacing that the director might want the film to have.

I do think any musician can learn to compose for a film so long as they are willing to let the film influence their work and are comfortable taking a bit of direction.

For your own creativity and approach to writing for film, what were some of the most important things you learned from teachers/tutorials, other composers, or personal experience?

Being a lover of films and having a feel for what works and what doesn’t has been my teacher. Making music for films is intuitive for me. When I see a film with music that really moved me I take a subconscious note of it and I think it just becomes something that I draw upon abstractly in my own approach later.

One film that I want to mention that has impressed me so much is Sound of Metal by Darius Marder.



The sound design on that film was so incredibly inspiring to me. Its focus on the experience of hearing loss reminded me how important hearing is to me.

As a field recordist who loves to listen in real time with a microphone and headphones to the hyperreal world around me and feel so present with the moment I know what a great loss that would be for me. The way that hearing loss was demonstrated from a first person experience in the film was just mind blowing and heartbreaking.

I love how much the sound design takes up space in that film and I would be excited to work on a challenging project like that. That film taught me that sound design is highly effective and is just as important as music to tell a story. The ending scene of the film is one of the most powerful statements on sound I have encountered.