The score for 'Anti-Gravity' (2021)

4' short film.

Directed by Sam Steinle.
Original music by James Mountain.

Anti-Gravity

I’ve Been Called a Coward interrogates the bystander effect, as a group of friends debate intervening in a domestic fight while they wait for a train.

Director: David Robinson-Smith
Music: James Mountain
Music Mixer: Geir S. Brillian.

Violin I: Fiona Ziegler
Violin II: Michelle O'Young
Viola: Tahlia Petrosian
Cello: Tim Nankervis
Double Bass: Alex Henery

Coming soon. In post-production (2022).

I've Been Called a Coward (2022) - Original Soundtrack

Grindstone documents the story of T. J. Smith's Premier Gym in Adelaide, South Australia; investigating the boxing gym's humble origins and the people keeping its spirit alive today.

Directed by Sam Steinle
Produced by Michael Lawrence-Taylor, Victoria Perry & Sam Steinle
Original Music by James Mountain

Neon Dreams - Grindstone OST (2021)

I wrote this piece for solo classical guitar in an attempt to create a 'beautiful' piece of music. I had no other reason in mind when I wrote it, I was merely writing what came into my head and so when it came to naming the piece, I had great difficulty. 

I chose the name 'Interpretation' to urge the listener to create their own image or memory to attribute it to. When I asked friends and family for help in finding a name for the piece, I found that everyone had a different scene that it evoked; the answers ranged from a love song to flowers in a meadow to boats on Sydney Harbour, and I found that the name I had decided on from the conversation with the last person was immediately discarded by the next. 'Evening Memories' was changed to 'Image', which in turn was changed to 'The Blue Dahlia', which was again changed to 'The Absence of Complexity'.

On and on went my search for a title until I realised that everyone I had shown had had a different interpretation of what it was about, so why not leave it up to the listener to decide what the song means?

Copyright © James Mountain 2014
Artwork by James Sweetman

More at www.james-mountain.com

Interpretation

Nocturne is a tribute to Frédéric Chopin’s works of the same name. Chopin is one of my favourite Romantic composers and his nocturnes are some of his most famous and enduring pieces. Over the period of 19 years, he wrote 21 of these short, beautiful solos for piano, based on improvisation and a virtuosic compositional process. Interestingly, Chopin never wrote a nocturne in C major.

This recording was by the amazing Sally Greenaway
Artwork by Luka Vertessy

Nocturne

'Serial Murder' is inspired by the murder mystery novels of Agatha Christie and gains its name from the compositional technique used to create it – serialism. Each movement represents a different Hercule Poirot story spanning the length of Christie’s career from her first Poirot novel to her last, published after her death. The suite is designed to be playful and performer exaggeration and over-theatricality is encouraged.

A Mysterious Affair – A Mysterious Affair at Styles 
The Cat and the Pigeon – Cat Among the Pigeons 
Third Movement Tragedy – Three Act Tragedy 
With Milk and Sugar? – Black Coffee
Curtain Call – Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case

IV - With Milk And Sugar

Between Tall Trees takes its inspiration from Sue Needham’s painting, Forest. The piece attempts to explore the parts of the forest world that the painting does not show – the wildlife that swarm between the roots and branches that are often heard but seldom seen. In this way, the painting and the music work together in harmony to illustrate two aspects of forest life – the flora (Forest) and the fauna (Between Tall Trees).

To represent these forest creatures, I built upon a series of simple themes and motifs; most no longer than four notes. By extending and building upon these themes, I discovered a wealth of music to explore – much like uncovering the forest creatures in the woods. The music rarely lets up in pace, providing an exciting and energetic musical experience.

Between Tall Trees garnered First Prize and the Emerging Composer Under 25 Years Prize in the 2016 Matt Withers Composition Competition.

Artwork by Luka Vertessy

Between Tall Trees

In November of 2017 I was approached by my high school music teacher to compose a piece of music for the guitar orchestra that I was a part of for my six years of high school. I’ve been in various guitar ensembles ever since high school, and when writing this piece, it occurred to me that I had to compose something that was easy enough for beginners to play, but interesting enough that they’d want to.

I didn’t write the piece until a year later. "A Perfect Sky" is a homage to the guitar music of composers such as Richard Charlton and Paul Svoboda who have contributed so much to the guitar ensemble repertoire.

A Perfect Sky

No piece can ever be performed exactly as the composer intended. If the composer writes a metronome mark, how can the performer ensure that they don’t stray from that tempo? How do we know that our volume of mezzo piano is the same as Beethoven’s? How short is a staccato?

isimili intentionally subverts the notion of exact or truthful performance. The piece is comprised of six individual ‘fragments’, each around a minute long. The fragments are not organised in any particular order, and it is up to the performer to decide what order to perform them in. The composer does not have a preferred order of performance, so there are 720 different ways that the piece can be played.

As a comment on originality, three of the fragments are directly inspired by existing pieces of music. Every piece of music is an amalgamation of existing music that a composer has heard in their life, because originality is just a melting pot of an individual’s unique tastes. What you hear in this piece may sound like something you know – maybe you’ve listened to the same pieces that I have, or maybe every piece of art that exists in a postmodern world is a pastiche of what has come before.

The title comes from the word ‘verisimilitude’ which refers to the relative and apparent trueness of something.

Commissioned and performed by David Coates

isimili

On the Peculiar Nature of Tears is an exploration of raw emotion. Between its lush chords and familiar sounding motifs is a sense of space that belies the beauty of its melody. 

This piece is inspired by “Nimrod” from Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The opening theme of Nimrod is the source for most of the musical material in this piece. Although it attempts to fight through the layers every so often, the theme cannot be heard in full until right at the end, a full five minutes into the piece.

It was composed in 2018 and is performed here by Matthew Castle on saxophone.

On the Peculiar Nature of Tears

This suite of miniatures explores the textures and timbres of the four orchestral families. Each movement is intended to evoke the scene or emotion described in the title:

I: Moonrise
Beginning with a serialist melody, this movement depicts the majesty of a rising moon.

II: Wintering
This movement takes its title from Sylvia Plath’s poem of the same name. The poem is about cold winters and dark memories, but also describes the hope and wonder as the winter turns to spring.

III: Pastoral
Wheat fields and grazing animals. A buzz of activity on a beautiful summers day.

IV: Aurora
Aurora is based on the opening theme of “Venus, the Bringer of Peace” from The Planets by Gustav Holst.

Pastoral

Moonrise

The China Syndrome is a 1979 film that follows a television reporter (Jane Fonda) and her cameraman (Michael Douglas) who discover safety coverups at a nuclear power plant. The original film was released without a score, so I rescored the climactic scene towards the end when the power plant begins to explode with my own original music.

The China Syndrome - Rescored (DEMO)

The score for 'Isolation' (2020)

3' visual poem.

Directed and edited by Sam Steinle.
Music composed and conducted by James Mountain.
Music mixed by Geir S. Brillian.

Isolation [SOUNDTRACK]

The score for 'Carwash' (2020)

4' visual poem.

Story and cinematography by Petra Leslie.
Directed by David Robinson-Smith.
Music composed and conducted by James Mountain.
Music mixed by Geir S. Brillian.

Carwash [SOUNDTRACK]

Selections from the score for 'Sunnies' (2020)

11' short film.

Written and directed by Ismail Khan.
Produced by Skye Leon.
Original music by James Mountain.
Music mixed by Geir S. Brillian.

OFFICIAL SELECTION 2021 SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION 2022 FLICKRFEST

Sunnies - Sunnies OST (2020)

Magnify - Sunnies OST (2020)

Selections from the score for 'Sunnies' (2020)

11' short film.

Written and directed by Ismail Khan.
Produced by Skye Leon.
Original music by James Mountain.
Music mixed by Geir S. Brillian.

OFFICIAL SELECTION 2021 SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION 2022 FLICKERFEST

Pharmacy Muzak - Sunnies OST (2020)

End credits music from the score for 'Sunset Country' (2020)
OFFICIAL SELECTION 2021 MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION 2021 POITIERS FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION 2021 SCHNIT WORLDWIDE SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

14' short film.

Written and directed by Petra Leslie.
Produced by Georgina Wills.
Original music by James Mountain.
Music mixed by Geir S. Brillian.

End Credits - Sunset Country OST (2020)

The Dance

Budgewoi Boy

Garlic Pizza

Pop and Lock

There's a Story About His Dad

We Shatter the Arms of Others

Crabs in a Bucket

People Don't Like Different

Dance For Me

Mud Crab II

Mud Crab I

James Mountain (b. 1996) is an award-winning Australian composer of music for concert, theatre and film. His concert works have been performed around Australia and New Zealand by internationally recognised artists such as Dan McKay, Matt Withers, and the Geelong Symphony Orchestra. He has won awards including both First Place and the Under 25 Emerging Composer Award in the 2016 Matt Withers Composition Competition for his guitar solo "Between Tall Trees", Second Place in the 2019 Athenaeum Club Composition Competition for his piano quartet "Moons We Live With", and a Wesley Music Centre Composition Scholarship in 2014. He was the recipient of the 2017 R.M. Eggleston Literary Arts Award for his original musical Green Room which was premiered at the Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2017.

James Mountain - Composer

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