Scott Hull is quick to clarify that Requiem is not his first proper solo album. It’s more of a missed opportunity—a film score that was ultimately scrapped and given another go on Hull’s longtime label Relapse Records.
“I worked on this quite a long time—the majority of 2006, in fact,” the guitarist/producer explained around its release. “The director became unreachable, and soon I learned that he had abandoned this score altogether. So it sat around until some of the folks at Relapse asked me to put together a demonstration disc of the soundtrack and sound design work I had done. I began to piece this music together and, low and behold, it seemed to take shape as its own entity…. This wouldn’t really have been my first choice as a solo artist to release, because it was music written for a specific purpose, so I don’t really consider this a solo record. But I hope some of you out there can get into it.”
We certainly can. A melancholy, mixtape-like meditation on “the pathos of death, the burden of guilt, and the weight of consequence in all their stages,” Requiem can be traced back to everything from Tangerine Dream (the shimmering synths and rain showers of “Santificato,” the 14 manic lost-in-the-clouds minutes of “In Paradisum Deducant Te Angeli”) to Neil Young’s seminal Dead Man soundtrack (the country-fried film cues of “Shootout”). Fervent Pig Destroyer fans may be shocked by its lack of blast beats and buzz saw riffs, but there’s no denying the wasted potential in these pieces. Or the simple fact that someone else needs to commission a soundtrack from Hull that actually makes its way to the screen. Anyone have Panos Cosmatos’ number?
