{"id":4422,"date":"2014-06-25T04:52:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T04:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skylight.gr\/administrator_wordpress\/index.php\/2014\/06\/25\/paul-haslinger-ex-member-of-tangerine-dream-now-is-composer-of-amcs-new-show-qhalt-and-catch-fireq\/"},"modified":"2014-06-25T04:52:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T04:52:00","slug":"paul-haslinger-ex-member-of-tangerine-dream-now-is-composer-of-amcs-new-show-qhalt-and-catch-fireq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/2014\/06\/25\/paul-haslinger-ex-member-of-tangerine-dream-now-is-composer-of-amcs-new-show-qhalt-and-catch-fireq\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Haslinger, ex-member of Tangerine Dream, now is composer of AMC\u2019s new show “Halt and Catch Fire”"},"content":{"rendered":"


Paul Haslinger, composer for AMC\u2019s new show about 1980s tech revolutionaries, Halt and Catch Fire, isn\u2019t trying to revive that era of scary hairdos. \u201cThe \u201880s hair was horrible, the clothes worse, and anywhere you went you\u2019d hear the same music,\u201d says Haslinger, \u201cwhich started with Duran Duran and worked its way down to Kajagoogoo and Level 42 \u2014 really horrible!\u201d But Haslinger\u2019s former band, Kraftwerk\u2019s rival German electronica band Tangerine Dream, wasn\u2019t half bad, and on the show, he evokes its heyday. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I liked about the \u201880s was a certain moodiness \u2014 it was an adrenaline-fueled decade,\u201d says Haslinger, who joined Tangerine Dream in 1986, when it had just conquered Hollywood with hypnotic soundtracks like those for the Tom Cruise films Risky Business and Legend. \u201cThe show is a character study of people caught up in this time and trying to make something new. The \u201880s setting gives us an excuse to dive into those styles and colors, to use them shamelessly. But if it was just an \u201880s revival exercise, it wouldn\u2019t be exciting to watch. The ambition is not just to revive Tangerine Dream, but to pick out the cool stuff and present it in a different way. About half the score is inspired by \u201880s memories and vibe, and half is new.\u201d Music supervisor Thomas Golubic is behind the choices of the \u201880s songs on the soundtrack.<\/p>\n

Haslinger sees a striking parallel between the young Steve Jobs\/Bill Gates types in Halt and Catch Fire, who challenged IBM\u2019s cumbersome conventions to create the personal computer, and TV\u2019s current revolutionaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can find a lot of analogies there, all valid,\u201d he says. \u201cAMC and HBO have benefited because network TV\u2019s cliches are overbearing \u2014 there\u2019s always a big ramp before a commercial break so people will come back, sometimes ridiculously big. People are sick of it, and they want something different, an alternative to network TV. Composers are the first in line to say, \u2018It sucks and it\u2019s just not cool!\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n

Haslinger thought Halt and Catch Fire was so cool, he composed its crucial cue before he\u2019d seen any footage. \u201cLike Morricone on Once Upon a Time in America, it was written on the basis of the idea of the show,\u201d says Haslinger. \u201cThough I\u2019m not comparing myself to Morricone!\u201d The cue is heard at the end of the third episode, the last episode and many in between.<\/p>\n

Haslinger, 51, made a 1996 album called World Without Rules, and he\u2019s been breaking rules ever since he left Vienna\u2019s Academy of Music. \u201cWhen you talked to classical musicians about what compression or distortion sounds good on a guitar, they\u2019d give you a blank stare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tangerine Dream got what Haslinger was talking about, and gave him a chance to break lots of traditional rules, along with getting Hollywood composing experience. On his own since 1991, he scored Blow, Blue Crush, the Emmy-nominated Sleeper Cell and Underworld, for which he sampled and electronified sounds from the Vienna Symphonic Library.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got to Hollywood, Tangerine Dream was pass\u00e9,\u201d he recalls. \u201cTV was dead, and film music dominated by people wanting to write nice melodies for traditional orchestras. I ran into huge obstacles with producers just not getting it. Many times I was forced to use cliches.\u201d<\/p>\n

But now, the suits are all ears to new sounds. \u201cWe\u2019ve been worn out by \u2018big sound\u2019 in film music, and people want smaller ensembles, different ideas,\u201d says Haslinger. \u201cYou saw that in the last awards season.\u201d<\/p>\n

He cites Arcade Fire leader Will Butler\u2019s best score Oscar nomination for Spike Jonze\u2019s Her, and agrees with Butler\u2019s idea that production is to the new generation what melody was to the Beatles generation. He also hails Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross\u2019 score for David Fincher\u2019s The Social Network \u2014 a job Haslinger tried to get. \u201cFincher has a great musical sensibility, but he told my agent he had one condition: The composer could never have done a film before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haslinger works constantly in TV, film and videogames, and he recently teamed up with an old Vienna colleague for a possible recording project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t announce anything yet, but I can\u2019t rule out going on tour again,\u201d he says. “I’m not a guy who likes to be bored.”<\/p>\n

Source: Hollywood Reporter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Haslinger, composer for AMC\u2019s new show about 1980s tech revolutionaries, Halt and Catch Fire,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}