Held on October 24th, the World Soundtrack Awards will celebrate its 15th anniversary with one of the most brilliant film composers of his generation, known for his scores of ‘Back to the Future’, ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ and ‘Forrest Gump’. Brussels Philharmonic will perform the compelling scores by Alan Silvestri, conducted by Dirk Brossé and accompanied by film fragments on the big screen. The traditional film
music concert will be held during the second part of the World Soundtrack Awards. The WSAwards will once again be the festive closing event of the 42nd Film Fest Gent.

With his percussion driven scores and arrangements one can only compare with roller coasters, Alan Silvestri has emerged as one of the major Hollywood composers that broke through in the eighties.

Although Silvestri has succeeded in writing successful scores for films that were able to exist on their own, his name remains associated with some of the most popular films of the last decades: ‘Back to the Future’, ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ and ‘Forrest Gump’. Three titles that are not coincidental all by Robert Zemeckis. After the technically ground breaking director asked Silvestri to write the music for his third film, ‘Romancing the Stone (with Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas) in 1984, Silvestri composed the scores for all of Zemeckis’ films thereafter.

A rather unique collaboration in film history, which will certainly be the focus of the concert. Silvestri's music for Zemeckis is instantly recognizable, but also extremely varied, ranging from sweeping action of the ‘Back to the Future’ trilogy, lovely piano themes from ‘Forrest Gump’ or sweet melodies from ‘The Polar Express’ (the first all-digital-capture film), to the exuberant jazz from the live action/animation mix ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ and the aggressive percussion for the macabre fantasy ‘Death Becomes Her’.

Other directors who were eager to work with Silvestri received scores from different registers of the film music repertoire. For James Cameron's epic underwater film ‘The Abyss’, Silvestri used a blend of synthesisers and orchestral music to deliver a score that sounded alternately explosive, mysterious and ecclesiastical. For Sam Raimi's ‘The Quick and the Dead’ he composed a rather fitting tribute to the legendary scores of Ennio Morricone. Add the superhero blockbuster ‘The Avengers’, the horror adventure ‘The Mummy Returns’ and the comedy ‘Father of the Bride’ and ‘The Parent Trap’ and you will notice that there isn’t a genre that Alan Silvestri has left untouched. Though he confesses he has a weakness for pure action scores. "I have a great time on the hard-hitting action material". Looks like it will be an action packed WSAwards concert this year.

Film Fest Gent also welcomes Daniel Pemberton, winner of the Discovery Award 2014, as one of its guest. The British composer was awarded for his scores: ‘The Counselor’ by Ridley Scott and ‘Cuban Fury’ by James Griffiths. Pemberton was only sixteen when he began composing in 1994 and now has 103 credits to his name, largely owed to the numerous TV series (‘Desperate Romantics’, ‘Occupation’), mini series ‘(Upstairs Downstairs’, ‘The Games’), TV docs, television movies and games for which he provided the music. It has only been in these last couple of years that he focuses on feature films, such as ‘The Man from UNCLE’ by Guy Ritchie as one of his recent major works.

Patrick Duynslaegher,
Artistic director Film Fest Gent

15th World Soundtrack Awards & Concert
Brussels Philharmonic and The Flemish Radio Choir conducted by Dirk Brossé.
24 October 2015 - Kuipke Gent

Tickets are available through www.filmfestival.be or www.worldsoundtrackawards.com #WSAwards

Limited 299 copies Colored vinyl just for record store day 2015

The album “Terre Haute” is the first body of work from the industrial legends FM Einheit (Einstürzende Neubauten) En Esch (formerly of KMFDM) and Postpunk Diva Mona Mur.

EINHEIT, ESCH & MUR call their music a GERMAN ANGST RIDDEN ART CORE EXPERIENCE. The main sounds that I see coming out of this album are post industrial to minimal electronics, with some classy guitar.

The voices of Mona Mur and En Esch meets the tribal percussion of FM in a visceral trip of electro loops noisy guitars and electronic drones. An Amazing Experience.

Limited 299 copies Colored vinyl just for record store day 2015

“London-based quartet Kid Wave make an appealing style of guitar pop, fuzzy and warm, not really adhering to any particular trend.” –Brooklyn Vegan

The international two girl/two boy quartet’s debut album Wonderlust is a crafted set of pop songs that bathe in the golden, restorative rays more commonly associated with life on the Californian coast rather than London, where Kid Wave reside. This is music that’s delivered with an uplifting sense of youthful wild abandon and imbued throughout with blissful surges of musical serotonin but with clear undercurrents of a wistful sense of melancholy too. Occasionally dark clouds obscure their sonic sunshine and there’s a nagging sense that no summer lasts forever.

Nevertheless it’s an achievement made all the more remarkable by the fact that 22 year old singer/songwriter Lea Emmery and guitarist Mattias Bhatt hail from the south-east coast of Sweden where sub-zero Baltic winds blow in to freeze the land for several months of the year, and that this debut was recorded in Stockport during the darker days and crepuscular nights of a dank English winter.

Kid Wave craft slacker indie rock and transcendental dream-laden pop of a distinctly early 90s bent – music to lose yourself in and give your life to. We hear shades of Lush and Dinosaur Jr. in their sonic sunshine, though other ears might recall PJ Harvey, The Lemonheads, The Breeders, Pavement, Teenage Fanclub. But these are all bands largely operational before the members of Kid Wave were even born – artists who singer Lea readily admits she doesn’t always necessarily know much about - so let’s not get too entrenched in nostalgia for days gone by. The one thing that perhaps unites this music of the past with the Kid Wave’s effervescent present is an infatuation with melody; this quartet never sacrifice the song for volume or let the feedback do the work. Because at the centre, beneath the shoe-gazing dynamics and the dark lyrical undercurrents that speak of existential quandaries and the confusions of young life in the 21st century, is a big beating gorgeous pop heart.

Wonderlust. It’s an aptly-titled for an international band whose founding members’ wanderings lead them to congregate in the capital. Kid Wave began life as a solo when Lea Emmery relocated from Norrköping (a city sometimes referred to as “Sweden’s Manchester”) to London in 2011 at the age of 18. She knew no-one, had no band, no contacts. But she did have drive, vision and ambition – insane levels of it, in fact. Several years playing classical piano at a local college in Sweden had lead to a stint in an all-girl punk band and though that tenure was short-lived, there was simply no turning back. Noise beckoned.

What began life as solo demos soon morphed into Kid Wave when Mattias Bhatt, part of the same clique of indie kids back in Norrköping an now in London, signed up. From Perth, Australia, Serra Petale was teaching drums at a college where Lea was studying sound engineering and seemed “impossibly cool”. She was in. Bassist Harry Deacon was a friend-of-friends.

A clutch of early songs were recorded with Rory Atwell (Palma Violets, The Vaccines, Male Bonding) production, before Lea sent some music to Heavenly Recordings – “and no-one else”. Kid Wave had no management, no team of people fighting their corner. Just songs. Heavenly liked what they heard and signed the band in early 2014. It was, Lea laughs, that simple. The plan that she had when she moved to London with some clothes and a guitar was working remarkably well.

2014 saw Kid Wave playing shows with The Wytches, TOY, The Orwells, Childhood and more recently with Jimi Goodwin at the Heavenly 25 weekend in Hebden Bridge. In autumn 2014 they recorded Wonderlust at the magical analogue wonderland that is Eve Studio in Stockport with producer Dan Austin (Doves, Cherry Ghost). Beyond the studio the lashing rain and dark north-west nights were banished by the youthful exuberance and sugared sounds being created within.

Because Kid Wave sing escapist song of struggle, desire and yearning: songs born out of Lea’s lonely years as a teenager adrift in a foreign country, where the hope of musical success and a superhuman level of stubbornness were the only things stopping her from returning to the safety of the family home. There were, she says, anxieties. Plenty of those. Teenage dreams so hard to beat? Well – yes, actually. It’s a philosophy that still stands - that idea of music as a mood-altering, soul-saving outlet for bands and fans alike is alive and singing in the joyous rush of Kid Wave songs such as the breaking waves of sound on the jangling ‘All I Want’, the yearning ethereal pop of ‘Gloom’ or the chiming fuzzed-up pop riffs of ‘Wonderlust’.

These are timeless songs that sing of life-defining moments, Wonderlust sure to soundtrack many a young romantic fumbling or infatuation, wild party or sun-rise revelation. Kid Wave are the sound of liberation – of the very essence of life itself.

Kid Wave are: Lea Emmery (vocals & guitar), Harry Deacon (bass), Serra Petale (drums) & Mattias Bhatt (guitar).

Available on 22th April on E One: Love, Rosie
Director:Christian Ditter
Stars:Lily Collins, Sam Claflin, Christian Cooke

Rosie and Alex have been best friends since they were 5, so they couldn't possibly be right for one another... or could they? When it comes to love, life and making the right choices, these two are their own worst enemies. One awkward turn at 18, one missed opportunity... and life sends them hurling in different directions. But somehow, across time, space and different continents, the tie that binds them cannot be undone. Will they find their way back to one another, or will it be too late? Based on Cecelia Ahern's bestselling novel "Where Rainbows End", LOVE, ROSIE is a modern comedy-of-errors tale posing the ultimate question: Do we really only get one shot at true love?

Available from 15yh April on : Mr. Turner
Director:Mike Leigh
Stars:Timothy Spall, Paul Jesson, Dorothy Atkinson

Mr. Turner explores the last quarter century of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851). Profoundly affected by the death of his father, loved by a housekeeper he takes for granted and occasionally exploits sexually, he forms a close relationship with a seaside landlady with whom he eventually lives incognito in Chelsea, where he dies. Throughout this, he travels, paints, stays with the country aristocracy, visits brothels, is a popular if anarchic member of the Royal Academy of Arts, has himself strapped to the mast of a ship so that he can paint a snowstorm, and is both celebrated and reviled by the public and by royalty.