King Britt: Seeing Music
Scoring History
In 2006 the National Parks Service asked Britt to write backing tracks for a documentary about the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery March for black voting rights — a march that lasted four days and comprised more than 25,000 people. Britt was, to say the least, flattered. “It’s one of the most important events in our history and that alone got me excited about the project,” he says. “In addition, they gave us free reign to compose the tracks. It was an incredible experience.”
The Selma March began peacefully, but when the protesters neared Montgomery, they met an army of police officers. The bloody clash was broadcast across the U.S., leaving an indelible mark on the country’s collective conscious. Britt and Motzer were asked to score footage of the incident. The resulting tracks were ominous and emotionally charged. “That footage really inspired what Tim and I did for the film,” says Britt. “It’s a very dark and apocalyptic soundtrack to what was going on down there during that time.”
The team produced the tracks with Logic Pro at three different studios. “I did an arrangement and then passed the project on to Tim,” says Britt. “He has a different version of Logic, but I was able to burn the project files to a disk and he added organs, guitar riffs and a few other touches.” Motzer and Britt sent the files for mastering via .Mac iDisk and the final tracks were added to the documentary. The film, called “Never Lose Sight of Freedom,” will be on display in NPS museums and shown in classrooms across the U.S. “A lot of young people really don’t know what went down back then,” says Britt. “They read about it in history books, but it’s very important to me for them to see it, to experience it.”
Dreaming an Album
In the midst of scoring documentaries and cinematic commercials, Britt managed to squeeze a Sister Gertrude tour into his schedule. The producer assembled a super group of Philly musicians for the four-month international tour. “In the live translation of it, we spin the CD and use a laptop,” says Britt. “Then we play around her vocal. We used a Mac laptop to mix the visuals live.”
Britt also used a Mac laptop to compose during downtime. This time, however, his inspiration came from within. “When we were on the road, I had crazy dreams,” he says. “I had my old Mac laptop with me and I’d just start writing these little four-bar techno sequences when I woke up, all based on interpretations of my dreams.” By the end of the tour, Britt had enough material for an entire album. He called the project “The Nova Dream Sequence” and it’s set for release in 2006. “I’ve always been a fan of techno,” says Britt. “I’ve always infused it in my DJ sets and I’ve always done it for fun on my own. This album is definitely more toward the techno sound, with very cinematic elements.”
The DJ has already taken his dreams on the road. “For the live show I use three Pioneer CDJ CD mixers and the laptop,” he says. “I’ll either use Ableton Live or Logic. Tim Motzer plays guitar. It’s basically a whole DJ set, but we incorporate live elements.” Britt will tour the U.S. and Europe in the fall and winter of 2006. In 2007, he plans to craft another Nova album. “It’ll still be techno, but I’d like to bring jazz vocals into it,” he says. “I would like to get a bunch of guest vocalists for the album.”
Transporting a gaggle of vocalists across the globe for a live tour wouldn’t be practical. Britt’s solution? “I would like to shoot them on a blue screen, lip syncing the songs. Then when we do the live show, I can just incorporate them into a video projection using a DVDJ or the laptop.”
But even while the Nova project blossoms, Britt will continue to score films. “I’d like to keep working with major studios, but I’d also like to score for independent films,” he says. “Scoring is hard to get into and now that I’ve broken in, I’ll just keep going.”
