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Opiate

Stutter Divine

Naked

Bitter Tool

Noise

This track is from the album Bleed On Your Dress and is available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/saar

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Weimar

Suture

Turpentine

Hermione

When putting together the arrangement for the All Aboard! (Everybody's Doing The Ark) from Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival, I was playing around with a few versions of our "dance section." After some un-careful consideration with Terrance, we decided to put some animals boarding the ship, Noah's Ark style. In prepping the files for mixing, I accidentally created what I now call The Most Awesome Stripped Down Ark. A couple of brass players doing their thing while the animals rock.

The Most Awesome Stripped Down Ark

Tell your son the king is gone
Fell in wailing those who passed
Typed himself in Remington
Every itch down to the last

Not a soldier cried his name
Never did he cry his own
I gathered flowers in the shed
Tell your son the king is gone

The King Is Gone

As I was putting the score together for Alleluia, I wanted to build in lots of hidden strings that would tie the characters and ideas of this and the first Carnival together. There were many-a-conversation that Terrance Zdunich​ and I would have regarding how the worlds of Heaven and Hell connected. Then the banging of my head against the wall to see what would fall out. So while there are 666 rules in Hell, the song can be heard in Heaven's Library for the Librarian's own version of the rules: 777.

A live cover of Brazen by Skunk Anansie (who is as badass as they come). I harbor secret aspirations to write something this awesome.

Brazen

The score to Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival was put together like a puzzle: hidden connections everywhere. This piece is the final encounter between Emilie Autumn's Painted Doll and Adam Pascal's The Agent. A little side note: In considering the evolution of Heaven and Hell music from past to present, Terrance Zdunich and I decided that there would be musical spillover from Heaven past to Hell past before the devil truly finds his own voice. That is why the verses of After The Fall are a Heaven melody (one that actually plays as score in Heaven), whereas the choruses are the definite beginnings of Hell. So for that final moment together alone, I wanted to bring these musical worlds together. As Doll and the Agent meet once again, two melodies are played back and forth against each other: the chorus of Prick! Goes The Scorpion's Tale (plucked out on piano) and the verses of After The Fall (on the glockenspiel).

Love

So let's start at the beginning. When Darren Lynn Bousman and I talked about how to approach the score to Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival, we decided to take a Peter And The Wolf approach to the whole endeavor: create themes for each character and build on them throughout the film. One of the earliest opportunities to do this was inside the very hungover big top tent. The cast of carnies were not their usual bad selves (with the exception of Marc Senter's scorpion hair). What better way to capture the drunken spirit than to pull out the kazoo and riff on the melody of The Devil's Carnival from episode one (that I wrote with Terrance Zdunich)? Kazoo: check! Idiocy: check! Can I say that the kazoo performance is all one take? Not that impressive... but still.

The After After After Party

One of the most interesting aspects about scoring Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival was trying to figure out how to be true to each character through their unlikable moments. Let’s face it, there really should not be redeemable characters when it comes to this world, just ones we love for being un-redeemable. This confrontation between June and Cora, and then Cora and The Watchword is a perfect example. Terrance Zdunich and I got in my car and drove off to dinner after I played him this one and told him it was called Enemy. It sort of threw me a little bit when he asked me why. Let me tell you. Everyone in Heaven is an enemy. To themselves or others. Emilie Autumn’s Painted Doll is out of her depth and doesn't realize it, Lyndon Smith’s Cora is antagonized and then betrays, and Barry Bostwick’s Watchword is looking for a bad apple, and about to do something really weird that I absolutely love. Emilie’s June theme is played, but, if you’ll notice, it is constantly, slightly, out of time with itself and changing musical keys. But this is the beginning of the formation of Painted Doll. Towards the middle you’ll hear the first time that Prick! is played. Then the music turns to Alleluia, but comes in dark and low. This world is built on having antagonistic musical ideas.

Enemy

Probably the funnest challenge in writing the score Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival was creating the sound of Hell in its infancy, the a-long-time-ago-in-a-Hell-far-far-away place. If After The Fall is when Lucifer finally finds a voice of his own, what comes before it? Before the realities of film making interfered, Terrance Zdunich and I had a song that flushed out this past world, but it had to be cut. Our main conceit, though, was that this world wasn't quite as musical as it would become later on. So when Emilie Autumn's June fell way, way down that elevator shaft to Hell, I wanted to do two things: first, establish this bottom floor as a place far different than the one above and, second, establish The Carnival as a world that was just getting started, that was being built. I wrote the piece as a work-song, with nods to the train that would later transport sinners back to Heaven, with anvils clanging and with carnies bellowing.

Up Town vs. Uptown: Up Town

"We scratch on the plains/Uptown, they fluff the feathers." So begins Lucifer's After The Fall. As I've mentioned before, while writing the song, Terrance Zdunich and I made a point of starting off with a Heaven type melody and slowly birthing the musical sound of Hell through the rest of the song. This is The Devil's Carnival, after all. So in attacking two pivotal scenes for the score, I wanted to play on that concept.

When Adam Pascal's The Agent invites Emilie Autumn's June for a night on the town, I wanted to introduce her to the fun part of Heaven, the Up Town. So when he warns her to be careful, she flashes a smile, Heaven's chorus lights up, and she kicks up a heel. As she does, the drum kicks in and we're down for that one-shot stroll through Club Cloud Seven until Agent & Doll meet for their date. To build anticipation and urgency, the bass line never moves, just hits away at the same note over and over.

Up Town

Up Town vs. Uptown: Uptown

My last post about the score for Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival, was about Up Town, the scene where June and The Agent paint the town red (with the town being Heaven). In it, I drew a conceptual (if not musical) connection to After The Fall. But in this scene, Uptown, just a bit later on, the conceptual and the musical meet.

Later in the evening, Emilie Autumn's June rushes to Adam Pascal's Agent's office to seal a/the deal/or something. I wanted her to feel like she's keeping the night going, like she and The Agent never left the club. So I romanticized the music, but kept the energy of the previous track, and snuck (damn it, spell check, I think it would like me to say sneaked) in the verse melody from After The Fall half way through and then again at the end. And to echo Up Town, I ended the track with a sparse moment of only drums and bass, though this time time the sparseness means it won't end well for her.

All in all, there are two moments at which June hears the melody for After The Fall. First, here in this scene, when she reaches up and tries to become part of Heaven's elite, and, second, when she reaches down and embraces who she is in Hell and finally becomes Painted Doll.

Uptown

First of two score cues that are out and out callbacks to the original The Devil's Carnival film. This piece takes us through the first scene at the Carnival (after Lucifer's train and God's office). With fireballs blowing up in the sky outside the tent, Ticket Keeper walks up and makes his way towards the Carnies' end-of-night-I'm-so-hungover-I'm-kinda-dancing-celebration, or as I called it: The After After After Party. But before that, there need to be rules. So I deconstructed 666 for the late, late night, complete with a "classy" tuba and the air raid siren that was featured in the actual song in episode one. Recycling is for the greater good.

The New Orders

And as for the second to callback to the original The Devil's Carnival film, this was definitely cool to play with. Brianna Evigan's Merrywood is sent back up to Heaven and is interrogated by Jimmy Urine and Chantal Claret's Translators. There were two elements to this piece that I wanted to weave together. Beautiful Stranger for Merrywood, and the crazy fun energy that the Translators brought to their scenes. I brought in the harmonic strings from my arrangement for Beautiful Stranger in episode 1 and layered it over itself in different pitches as the music progressed. Then, I added a jittery version of the Translators' score theme later on so that they establish themselves here (I can't tell you enough how much Jimmy and Chantal's energy informed this). Always nice to have an old friend meet the new ones.

Reckless Creatures

A few more posts on Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival's score. This one is about Emilie Autumn's June's journey in Hell before becoming Painted Doll. What I wanted to do with this scene was twofold and centered on the idea to create the sense of foreignness that June would feel falling down from Heaven (her perceived home) to Hell (a budding circus). On the one hand, from June's perspective, she is in a new and strange world. On the other hand, from the Carnival's perspective, June's a candidate for a "game". I used sounds that are more European (slight differences between American stringed instruments and our brethren abroad). I also gravitated towards sadness, hopefully further alienating June from her newfound home in Hell (that's the interesting thing about score vs. songs - in songs you want to address a situation head on, in score you want to evoke a certain set of circumstances that reflect on what you're actually doing in order to create a "mirror"). And on top of it all, I've included a music box version of Beautiful Stranger.

Beaten And Outcast

The first of the last two thoughts on the score for The Devil's Carnival. I've been friends with Terrance Zdunich for a very long time, and worked together with him over the last four years on Carnival and our upcoming American Murder Song. The man's got a very specific sense of humor, so when I see it on screen, it tends to crack me up. So when it came to scoring Lucifer's tirade against Heaven, I felt like I should get in on the joke and give something back. This is the finest, most serious ham and cheese sandwich I got for the man with the horns. Hopefully I gave as good as he had.

Credulity

This was such a wonderful ride. Thank you all behind the scenes, in front of it, in front of the screens (beautiful fans) and anywhere and everywhere in between. Hope we get to make more.

For my last peek behind the curtain I've saved the moment when Lucifer's plans coalesce. He opens up a bit, ready to share what he's been dreaming up with the Ticket Keeper.

This is What We've Built: bones, plucks, and a strange combination of art and trash (in the best sense of the word).

Thank you for being a part of it.

Join us on the next leg of our journey: American Murder Song.

Can you smell what the Terrance Zdunich and I (I could be formal, but I won't refer to myself in the third person) are cooking? Please dive in and find out.

Lots of love and thanks.

What We've Built

I was rummaging through the first Devil's Carnival score (stored in the proverbial hard drive attic) and stumbled across this, which brought back some fond memories.

The cue played in the background when The Scorpion (played by Marc Senter) was seducing Tamara (played by Jessica Lowndes). So I'd call it circus romantic.

I had just moved to a new place and was not quite set up. So I pulled out my accordion and plopped a mic in the living room that night and wrote and recorded this (well, ultimately this, before that: lesser versions, over and over).

I'm sure the neighbors were loving it.

The Devil Is For Lovers

More original Carnival score music! Episode 1 style. This one from the big top as Ticket Keeper discusses the night's performance.

Putting the score together for the first movie was such a down and dirty adventure. With the songs themselves, I had spent weeks working out the music arrangements and getting the right sound so that every tuba explosion was happening at the perfect moment. But when it came to the score, I had two and a half weeks to write and record the entire movie.

This was one of the first things I wrote and it set the tone for the lighter end of the Carnival musical spectrum. And what better way to do that than break out the chattering percussion, metal anvils wonky piano? None.

SaarHendelman

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