Ellery Twining´s “Oy!” is an act of blind synchronization, a score composed for a student film the musician never saw. Parallel narratives replace the debt sound owes to image, refusing the role of background. Indeterminate music emerges from a specific interest in the underground work of Ben Bostian, where the arrangement ignores the scene to focus on a hidden structure.
Architecture for two strangers provides the common ground between the music and the film. Removing the visual cue strips away the safety of a cue sheet, leaving the intuition of the composer to fill the silence. Abstract detail governs the process, a series of sonic choices made in a vacuum that must collide with the frames of the filmmaker. A gamble on internal logic carries the weight of two separate intentions meeting without a map.
Skeleton looking for a body describes the function of this track. Independence from functional utility places the work within a lineage of scores that act as autonomous documents. Shadow provides the depth for the image, as “Oy!” avoids the trap of explaining the film it accompanies. Movement carries the confidence of someone who knows a room by touch, leaving behind a portrait of what happens when the sound stops waiting for a cue.
For those who might not know you yet, how would you introduce yourself?
I am The Talent.
If you had to bottle up your sound into just three words, which ones would you choose?
Conscious Frequency Intention.
Which artists (not only music-related) or moments have left the biggest mark on your music?’
Cocteau Twins changed my life because the lyrics could not be deciphered, and yet the meaning was conveyed through musical frequency, not words.
When you hit play on your songs, what kind of feeling takes over?
Accomplishment.
If you could team up with anyone in the world, no limits, who would be that dream collaborator?
Charlie Hall / the drummer for War on Drugs, and a succinct solo artist.
And finally, what are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about?
The third Ellery Twining solo record.
Can you walk us through the story or emotion behind “Oy!”? If you can, tell us about the filmmaking, the storytelling, and the musical approach to it.
The singular definition of the music for “Oy!” is that I wrote the entire piece without watching the film, which is the traditional soundtrack framework. Indeterminate Music.
