Arrival (soundtrack)

''Arrival (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)'' is the soundtrack composed by Jóhann Jóhannsson for Denis Villeneuve's 2016 film ''Arrival''. It was released under Deutsche Grammophon on November 11, 2016, the same day as the film's theatrical release. The score was met with critical acclaim and received accolades at various ceremonies, including a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Original Music and Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, but was ruled ineligible for contention at the 89th Academy Awards.

Background

Jóhann Jóhannsson was involved in pre-production for ''Arrival'', and took early influence for the score from the film's script, concept art and initial discussions with director Denis Villeneuve about its mood and themes. It was their third and final collaboration following ''Prisoners'' (2013) and ''Sicario'' (2015). The pair did not discuss the music in detail; Jóhann recalled that Villeneuve "basically gave imcarte blanche to experiment", particularly in the early stages of composition, before collaborating more closely alongside the film's editor Joe Walker once "the sound adbeen established" in order to "indthe right places, the right moments for music" within the film. ''Arrival'' was shot without temp music, which meant Jóhann needed to have material ready before the editing process; he also noted that this approach required "good rapport and communication between the three of hem. The film was edited first without music to ensure that each scene worked on its own without it, before Jóhann's score was reintroduced as "a strengthener".

Due to the importance of language and communication in the film's story, Jóhann immediately decided that his score would need to prominently feature the human voice. However, he sought to distance himself stylistically from the work of György Ligeti, due to the association of his vocal music with the classic 1968 science fiction film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'', and therefore avoided cluster chords and micropolyphony in favor of "irregular and arrhythmic patterns of short notes which start small and are then layered to create a kind of cloud of short staccato polyrhythmic voices". He likened the resultant "Morse code-like phrases" to "the babbling of a new infant trying to understand – or subconsciously absorb – the basic structure of a language", further reflecting the themes of the film. Jóhannsson intended the score to contain "very unconventional, avant-garde, extended-technique choral writing as opposed to the more traditional choir sounds", so he worked with the vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices due to their "very good command of exotic vocal techniques". He took further influence from pieces such as ''Stimmung'' (1968) by Karlheinz Stockhausen, particularly through the composer's "use of overtones and harmonic singing and his aleatoric approach to performance", as well as the work of spectralist composers Gérard Grisey and Horațiu Rădulescu. For the score's orchestral and choral writing, he consulted the work of composers such as Grisey, Giacinto Scelsi, Michael Gordon, Georg Friedrich Haas and Meredith Monk.

Jóhann also prominently used tape loops in his score to reflect the circular motifs found in ''Arrival'', such as the logograms that make up the aliens' written language. He used a 16-track analogue tape recorder to record a long tape loop with layers of piano drones ( sustained without the attack) that were recorded at different speeds and then slowed down. He also enlisted frequent collaborator Lichens

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