Lawrence Le Doux - Music For Documentaries

Recording info

When Lawrence Le Doux was asked by filmmaker Fabrizio Terranova to soundtrack his documentary about Donna Haraway, he requested not to see the movie first. "Instead, I asked him to tell me the story of his encounter with her and his experience of the shooting in California", Lawrence recalls. After all, Terranova's approach to Haraway, a science philosopher known for his work on gender, identity, technology and trans-species relationships, had also been an unorthodox one. Far from deepening too much in theoretical concepts, the director spent a summer filming Haraway and her dog Cayenne at her home in Southern California. Maybe that's the reason why the sounds in "Music For Documentaries" feels so genuine and palpable. Inspired by Terranova's stories about wandering, nature, the deep sea, the West Coast winds, Science Fiction and surf, Lawrence produced a series of short pieces that, a bit like a Miyazaki film, connect the purity of nature to an esoteric dimension. It's music filled with heartwarming melodies and textures, but always with a mystifying undertone. As Lawrence himself puts it, "I think there is a certain darkness in the Soundtrack, as well as in the documentary, maybe this is inherent of the presence of humans on Earth". Terranova finally kept four of the tracks for the movie, but there were many more sketches and ideas floating around. After hearing them all, we liked them so much that we asked Lawrence to finish them for us, hence the plural in "Music For Documentaries". Even if some of those are imaginary. All of the tracks were created using a limited amount instruments, with a deliberate crossover of old synthesizers like a Farsa organ or Sequential Circuits's Pro-One and 90's technology like the Roland JD-800. It is curious that Lawrence says all his synths are "half-broken", since the sounds he extracts from them are absolutely healing.