A thrilling new release by composer Nicolai Patricio
The latest album release for Smartsound Cloud, EPIC TRAILER HYBRID, is a collection of powerful, energetic trailer music written by composer Nicolai Patricio. Most of the tracks begin with intimate, reflective beginnings and work their way up into explosive climaxes. They lean into the futuristic sound, with clear nods towards science fiction movies, especially Interstellar, which Nicolai (or Nico) labels as one of the most musically influential movies of our time. In the album, we hear those introspective piano sequences that Interstellar was famous for, though we also hear these intense, melodic horn blasts that would seem more akin to Star Wars or another science fiction action adventure. It’s a truly exciting album, just take a look here at our intro posted on our Instagram.
We sat down with the Portugal-based composer to get some insights into his process and what he thinks defines the modern trailer music sound.
Why trailer music?
I always liked the energy and the sound production in this style, so I thought it would be something cool to do. I wrote a couple of tracks, and right away I got ideas for other tracks. So, I thought, OK, let’s do an album.
What kind of imagery did you have in mind when you were writing the tracks?
I was imagining futuristic sci-fi settings. For each track, I was imagining a story. I’d first hear something in my head, a certain groove or a musical figure and then I’d arrange this 5-second idea and think, “OK, what is this about?” Then I would write maybe four or five words that I thought captured the concept. Next, I’d find a trailer that I thought would fit the concept. Like Interstellar, Anthem, Ace Combat, Modern Warfare, Battlefield, etc…
Then I would start writing music and at the same time look at the trailer to see if the music fit the trailer.
You’re normally writing game music – how different was it writing trailer music?
First of all, I think the structure is pretty different. Normally, game music doesn’t have a buildup and a climax. If you’ve got too much of a climax in the music for a video game, it starts to be distracting. There’s this big climatic build up in trailer music, especially in these kind of action trailers. Also, normally I’m writing a lot of orchestral music for video games and it doesn’t have as much sound design. I’m used to working with an orchestra as my main sound palette and then I add things to compliment it.
But for this kind of epic hybrid trailer music, it’s more like the orchestra is the compliment. I don’t use that much orchestra in this music. There’s a lot of sound design that goes into it. A lot of low hits, synth programming, rises and a lot of sound processing in general, so I spent much more time working on the sound than I did working on the composition itself. That’s what I think is the main difference.
Everything has to be very hard hitting and bombastic and that takes a lot of time working on the sound design to get it that way. You add your compressors, distortions and your EQs – a lot of stuff – to do on this kind of music from the sound design perspective.
What makes the “trailer sound”? How would you define modern trailer music?
It’s a good question. I think modern trailer music is usually pretty simple harmonically, but the arrangement is very full. It has to be high energy and intense. It has to be a hybrid, between the orchestra sound and synthetic sounds.
And it has to have a clear build up, so the arrangement starts very naked and simple and then something starts to drive the track – it can be an arpeggio, a string ostinato, a drum track… And then the arrangement gets fuller and fuller and fuller, and then the big climax kicks in.
Don’t you typically start working on guitar? Did that hold true on this album?
It is my main instrument, but I never start on the guitar because the guitar is not that versatile for composing. It’s hard to get the harmony and the melody at the same time. I usually started with the piano. Trailer music usually is simple, it’s one chord per bar. So, if I’m writing the harmony, I usually get a piano patch and I write the harmony on the piano and then at the same time, I’ve got my other hand to write the melody. So on the piano, you’ve got everything that you need to write the composition: You’ve got the rhythm, the harmony and the melody right there, and that’s harder to do on the guitar.
Composing the music
What did you enjoy most about making this album?
I think what I enjoyed the most was once an idea started to take shape, it was pretty exciting because of the music – trailer music is supposed to pump you up a little bit, you know? Once the idea started to take shape, it’d give me energy to finish it because the music in itself is exciting and gave me the energy to finish the track. That’s what is pretty cool about this style. When your own music is making your hair stand up – that’s exciting and that makes you want to work on it more and more.
The sound design aspect of it too. I find it really, really interesting. Programming synths and mangling the sound till you find something that is interesting and cool. It’s a bit daunting because the possibilities are endless. I usually tried to define what I wanted in my head before I’d start working because if I didn’t define it beforehand, I might get off track a little bit.
I don’t do a lot of sound design when I’m working on games where usually the main palette is the orchestra. I was very inspired by the work of Mick Gordon, who did the soundtrack for the new Doom games and Killer Instinct. His sound design is just incredible and that gave me a lot of inspiration to do my own thing.
Read more about Nicolai Patricio and his last album, Sky Is No Limit, in our previous blog here.
Which is your favorite track? Mine I think “No Man’s Land”, because there’s this really cool sound, like this weird whining sound. It sounds like it’s out of Blade Runner or something like that.
I was thinking about a very dystopian scenario when writing that track. There was a synth from a library that already had that bending characteristic, then I added a lot of distortion to it, OTT and reverb, so it sounded like what you hear on movies like Blade Runner, or Far Cry, like there’s a factory miles and miles away building something.
And “Otherworldly”. It opens and I think that’s where you really hear the Interstellar influence, because there’s just that piano progression right there, that really soft piano progression.
You hear a lot of piano in Interstellar and I think since it came out, you started hearing a lot more piano everywhere.
It was one of those movies with a really strong soundtrack, though. Like where it was almost another character of the movie. I think Dune, we’re going to start hearing a lot more Dune sounding stuff soon.
Well, Dune I feel that didn’t have the same impact. I feel a lot of the soundtrack for Dune is about soundscapes. What made the soundtrack for Interstellar so popular was the fact that it is was very melodic and the harmony was very catchy. Dune was almost a mixture of sound design and music. Most of the time it’s borderline sound design.
Adding instrumentation
Then on “Evolution”, it felt to me like you were inspired by Clint Mansell on his Requiem for a Dream soundtrack, that “Lux Aeterna” song.
I don’t know the song. I’ve probably listened to it though… [After listening] It sounds very dramatic, the ostinatos. It might be the same tonality.
I just wanted to write something that felt like the most important moment in your life – it’s now or never.
Which track was the hardest to finish?
I think it was probably, “Source of Life”. I had to finish this song and it was two minutes long and a friend told me, “Hey, this feels great, but it doesn’t feel finished. You gotta have something more.”
I didn’t know how to extend the track without making it repetitive. I had to think of a different harmony for the last section and make it sound even bigger than the section before it, but without using too much drum because a lot of drums didn’t fit the track. Drums would make it feel like a battle track or something, and I felt that it was more of an adventure track. So I had to make it sound bigger without using drums and find a progression that would keep it interesting throughout that last section.
That took me a little bit more time.
I really enjoyed this album. It’s really solid with a lot of incredible tracks.
I’m very happy to know that you enjoy the album, that you find it to be good music because there was quite a lot of work and love that I put into it.
