Film music must first and foremost serve narrative and emotion; to achieve this, we at Volophonic often aim to use narrative to inform the process of music creation. An example of this approach can be found in our score for Making Manson, a series about Charles Manson based on exclusive recordings of him talking, singing and playing guitar. These recordings served as the inspiration for the score. Manson uses only voice and guitar in the recordings so we limited our palette to guitar, voice and any sound that could be made with the body. These sounds were then processed to create new and interesting timbres.

This palette lent itself to the Spaghetti Western genre, which was relevant to the setting of the Manson story – Spahn Ranch – an abandoned Western movie set where the Manson Family lived. We proceeded to create Western themes that may have accompanied the kinds of movies and TV shows that would have been filmed on the ranch. To ‘Mansonify’ these themes, we used an effect that stretched the music to make it up to five times longer, mimicking the psychological effect of hallucinogens, which can distort and expand time.

“Shows Charles Manson ‘without the mask’”

TODAY.COM

“Manson offers chilling insight on his relentless killing sprees”

ROLLING STONE

“STREAM IT. Making Manson is interesting because of the tapes of Manson talking more in-depth about his “family” and the crimes they committed than anything we’ve heard from him before.”

DECIDER

“Cobbles together decades of audio recordings of Manson in prison to paint a picture of his life before and after the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by his devotees”

SALON

“One of the most surprising aspects was hearing Manson’s own unfiltered voice in conversations that spanned over twenty years”

THE MANUAL

“Fascinating”

THE STREAMABLE