Bodysong (Best British Documentary at British Independent Film Awards, 2003) is Simon Pummell’s ambitious art film intended to document the narrative arc of life. From birth, through childhood, eating, dancing, sex, and *spoiler alert* death. Not only did the very high profile score composer indisputably bring the project to the majority of its audience, but the score itself is integral to the film. The footage is free of dialogue, affording the soundtrack the prominence and attention it warrants. Radiohead fans who face the challenge of this soundtrack with the band’s pop output in mind are going to be surprised (or more likely weirded out) by the remarkably diverse and foreign sonic territory traversed in this score, as it rides the footage through from birth to death.
Musically, there is one thing that both the alien atmosphere and the underpinning cohesion of this album can be attributed to, and this is Greenwood’s self-imposed melodic/harmonic constraints: exclusive use of the octatonic scale (Olivier Messiaen’s second ‘mode of limited transposition’). The influence of Messiaen on Jonny Greenwood’s compositions is - as well as being alluded to himself in numerous interviews concerning his foray in “serious” music - aurally blatant. Just compare the lamenting fifth movement of Quatuor pour la fin du temps with ‘Moon Trills’ for an obvious example, the two sharing not only the octatonic scale but also the arrangement of block parallel piano chords and a drawn out, melancholic main melody. Whilst the otherworldliness of Messian’s work is sourced from profound Roman Catholic inspirations, Greenwood’s ‘Moon Trills’ evokes deep intangibilities concerning the sanctity of life, as it unfurls over a jarring, beautiful barrage of childbirth footage.
There are times, like that above, when Greenwood is undeniably derivative of his French idol, but when he strays from the Messiaen-esque arrangements into the further out timbral territories of free jazz and electroacoustic influence, the music becomes strikingly idiosyncratic. ‘Milky Drops From Heaven’ - accompanying more sex-oriented footage in the film, as its title might suggest - begins with a bass hook both sleazy and disembodied, soon to be drenched in orgasmically chaotic textures of brass improv, oscillators and noise waveforms.
Far beyond is Bodysong the substance of other Radiohead solo offshoots. Thom Yorke’s The Eraser came across an unrefined expansion of an existing branch of the Radiohead palette - albeit fantastic - and the less said about Phil Selway’s banal debut Familial the better. This score explores soundworlds that make Kid A sound like Pablo Honey, but is not devoid of Radiohead traces. In parts, ‘24 Hour Charleston’ wouldn’t sound out of place on Hail to The Thief, with a guitar riff that recalls both ‘2+2=5’ and ‘Go To Sleep’, adorned with a loose mess of glitch reminiscent of ‘The Gloaming’. As well as this, the above-mentioned block piano chords in ‘Moon Trills’ shamelessly nod toward ‘Pyramid Song’.
With a number of equally well received film scores under his belt (There Will Be Blood, Norwegian Wood) and several orchestral concert commissions (‘Smear’, ‘Piano for Children’, ‘Popcorn Superhet Receiver’ etc.), it’s clear that Jonny Greenwood - a principal member of the biggest band in the world - found a calling equally worthy of his time.