THE NEEDLE DROP. ROCKNROLLA

Welcome to THE NEEDLE DROP - where Dirty Soup Music Supervisors reveal their all-time favourite onscreen musical moments.

What about Gary Jules' melancholic version of Mad World in Donnie Darko, Dean Stockton's lip-synching to Roy Orbison's In Dreams in Blue Velvet or Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now? We know you'll have your top picks, and the list is endless!

First up: Master Music Supervisor Ian Neil on why he dropped Lou Reed's The Gun into Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla.

I.N - For this scene where Johnny Quid is hitting on a crack pipe and going into a state of unconsciousness, we needed something trippy. I was floating some cool artists on the temp edit and said we should look at Lou. Guy Ritchie asked me to find a track that was not overused. The Gun fitted that brief perfectly, and even though it was a dark drug scene, Lou was not opposed to the use, and so it was done. "You see, Johnny, the crackhead, knows that a rocker is worth more dead than alive…silly world, innit?"

Read Ian’s full bio HERE

KTL’S NEUROTRANSMITTER PLAYLIST: OXYTOCIN.

Welcome to KTL’s Neurotransmitter Playlist.

Dirty Soup’s creative neuroscientist Katherine Templar Lewis looks at the four brain chemicals affecting happiness and recommends music to help ease us back into the real world.

KTL - Due to the negative impact of stress caused by lockdown isolation and global uncertainty, the four primary chemicals in the brain that affect happiness - dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins - are running low. However science shows us that music can actively help boost these vital brain chemicals as we re-emerge into the world.

Today, let’s get up close and personal with oxytocin.

Oxytocin, the ‘hug hormone’ or ‘love drug’’, is a neurotransmitter associated with empathy, trust, love, and generally feeling and being social.

Triggered by hugs and human contact, we are a little low in this right now, which is adding to our feeling of being disconnected and increasing our social anxiety.

Studies have shown that listening to music with a tempo of around 55-60bpm can lower your heart rate and produce a corresponding surge in oxytocin as you relax. Oh yes, also, oxytocin levels genuinely increase more if you sing along, so don’t be shy!

Listen to the full playlist below and find out more about Katherine HERE.

DIRTY MONDAY PLAYLIST... FT ALEX EP

Today’s Dirty Monday Playlist is brought to you by NY based master composer Alex Epton.

Having collaborated with artists such as FKA Twigs, Arca, Kali Uchis, Jamie XX, Wiki, Amber Mark, Skepta, AJ Tracey, David Byrne and Jack Penate, it makes perfect sense that Epton has offered up his favourite analogue-synth-tinged tracks.

Check out the full playlist - and read why the tracks mean so much to Alex below.

Read Alex’s full bio HERE.

Silver Apples - Love Fingers. This is such a huge sound design influence for me. It's like the embodiment of an alarm/siren saying — RED ALERT—RED ALERT— but then just barely bent into shape so it can perform the function of music! Terrifying and futuristic.

Can - One More Night - I love how the synth/guitar/organ are all interlocking, weaving into this carpet of melody. Then, at 2:50, this random industrial buzzing noise starts happening like it's a regular thing to do. Also, how killing is Jaki's drumming on this!? What monster musicians. This is probably also the funkiest song ever recorded in 7/4.

The Normal - Warm Leatherette - More terrifying alarm sounds! This is like the ultimate in contrast and brutality to me. So powerful, and it just pushes.

TomTom Club - Wordy Rappinghood - This whole album is amazing, so hard to pick a toon, but this is definitely the one that influenced me the most. Out of all the amazing moments in here, the thing that really gets me is the little cartoony wobbly synth that pops up and goes "BOING!" On the "&" of "3" every second bar. It just jumps up and hits you in the face like stepping on a rake. Every dance track I ever make has some version of this device; it's just so addictive!

Broadcast - Pendulum - I found out about track one more recently. Very similar red-alert-alarm-vibe as the Silver Apples tune! I just love the whole world they build here. Also, I love all the squealing feedback stuff that keeps pushing and pulling in and out of frame.

Gary Numan & Tubeway Army - Are 'Friends' Electric - I'm guessing this was done on some first-generation polyphonic analogue synth, maybe a polymoog or an Oberheim? They basically spawned all of trance/Eurodance synth sounds with this tune. Maybe there's something earlier that does this? This is the first big tune with this sound that I'm aware of.

Portishead - Machine Gun - What even is this? so good! More air raid siren at 2:50!

Fever Ray - If I Had a Heart - This kinda took on some more cheesy context for me recently when I heard it in the opening credits of the history channel's "Vikings" series. Screw it. I still have all the time in the world for Fever Ray. I blast this super loud on the studio mains at least twice a week.

Alessandro Cortini - Iniziari - This is such a sick album! The story, I guess, is that he did these tunes all as improvisations on an EMS Synthi? The Synthi is one of the first all in one box synthesizers you could actually buy back in the 1960s. Every one I've ever played with has super unstable tuning, and it's super difficult to get music out of one. It's cool to see him transcend the limitations of this instrument and bring his whole, gorgeous, melodic and harmonic concept to it here.

LCD sound system - 45:33 - I think this was produced initially as a promo thing for Nike; I think that's why it's all baked together into one track. The first tune on the record is such a good way to reset the dance floor when you're DJing out somewhere and want to take it up/down to mid-tempo disco land. Also, pretty much every synth sound in "Someone Great" is unique and amazing. I spent so much time trying to figure out how to remake all these sounds. I'm pretty sure the pulsing drone is an EMS Synthi again. The big detuned bass reminiscent of Gary Numan sounds like it could be a Roland Jupiter? The little percussive arpeggiated sequence I'm still mystified by.

Suzanne Ciani - Concert at WBAI Free Music Store - I love what she's able to do here just by manipulating two (?) sequences on the Buchla. What a master of the instrument. I've been obsessed with this technique lately. taking really dead simple, small sequences and creating larger works out of them by transposing/overlaying them in different ways.

ASKA MATSUMIYA SCORES BETTY SEASON 2 FOR HBO.

Look out folks - genius composer Aska Matsumiya scores Betty season 2 for HBO.

Directed by Crystal Moselle, THE SHOW hits TV screens in June.

Read Aska’s full bio HERE

DIRTY MONDAY PLAYLIST... FT ED MORRIS

Director, writer, photographer and Dirty Soup collaborator - Ed Morris, goes deep with a special Bank Holiday Dirty Monday playlist - 6 hours 11 minutes of pure audio gold.

Check out the playlist - and read what the tracks mean to Ed below.

Influenced perhaps by photography, life is often recalled as a series of still images, moments. With a little time in the game, for me as I glance back life's more a number of grander, sweeping emotive vistas, landscapes of feeling that rise and fall. Like, for example, the wild, angry funk of long and bad relationships, the gentle melancholy of quiet life in a particular city or the gorgeous chaos of the young and single years.

What I’ve tried to do here is sculpt such a vista. It’s perhaps an unmusical playlist. Like a Coen Brothers' or Wim Wenders film, before and between everything an emotive note is struck that permeates, lingers and clings.

And then one day, as unbidden as it came, it’s gone. You’re out of it, like a change in the weather… that relationship, that city or even the person you were.

I hope this playlist takes you where it takes me. It’s a good stretch - perhaps I’ll see you there.

Ed x