Category: Albums

Looking Ahead – So Say We All

June 2, 2021

I will never forget the summer of 2009, when my unique band, The BSG Orchestra, rocked out on a crowded stage in San Diego during Comic Con, performing my score for Battlestar Galactica, just months after the epic series finale aired. The venue was bursting with my brilliant musicians, many of the cast, crew, writers, producers, and executives, as well as fans from around the world. Together, we experienced a collective euphoria, because we all loved the show with the same intense passion. After the last encore, the crowd erupted into an unprompted chant of “So Say We All,” a moment that remains one of the most magical and memorable of my life. As the house lights came up and the crowd dissipated, I collapsed into a sweat-soaked heap on the couch in the greenroom and realized that, for the first in my life, I had no new cues for the show to write. Battlestar Galactica had been the most significant part of my life for six years, and now, with this concert complete, it was over.

(more…)

Outlander Season 2 Soundtrack

October 28, 2016

Out2CD

Out2BearOUT_Logo_SmallWhile Outlander fans wait with bated breath for 2017 to deliver new episodes, I can perhaps ease some “Droughtlander” anxiety with today’s release of my new soundtrack album, compiling tracks from the epic second season. The album is available today, in both digital and physical formats, in a collaborated release from Madison Gate Records and Sparks & Shadows.

“Outlander: Season 2” is without doubt my most diverse album yet, and presented a real challenge to pull together as a satisfying listening experience. The score ranges from the ornate halls of Baroque Parisian courts, to muddy Scottish battlefields during the Jacobite uprising. While I do not always feel soundtrack albums must play in sequential order, I found that this season absolutely had to be sequenced that way.

The album feels almost like two different albums played back to back. The first half presents music from Paris, beginning with the French version of the “Skye Boat Song.” Track 11, the “Jacobite” version of that same song, shifts the tone radically to music from the Scotland episodes. Some tracks don’t perfectly fit the structure, such as “Leave the Past Behind,” a score cue that is not French in any way, coming from the premiere episode before we saw Claire and Jamie arrive in France. However, it still fit the flow of the musical storytelling, so I left it at the beginning. To me, that track almost feels like an opening overture before we dive into the Parisian material. (more…)

Black Sails – The Sound of Sails

January 28, 2014

BlackSails_Cover

Today, Sparks & Shadows has released my soundtrack for Black Sails, the ambitious new pirate drama from Starz and Michael Bay that premiered last weekend. To celebrate the release, I have posted my first in a series of eight video blogs chronicling my voyage on this unusual series. This week’s vlog, “The Sound of Sails,” offers a glimpse of the unorthodox recording sessions that led to this unique sound:

Ever since Battlestar Galactica, my writing has become more and more structured, culminating in the first season of Da Vinci’s Demons which was, in essence, a five-hour symphony woven around a meticulously constructed musical palindrome. That style of classical composition would have utterly destroyed the gritty realism that the producers strove for in Black Sails. I needed to revert back to a primal creative state: my goal was to create music that sounds improvised by an exhausted crew aboard a ship navigating choppy waters. I wanted the audience to sense dirt beneath fingernails plucking jangly mandolin strings, to feel urgent strains of a hurdy gurdy crank, and to smell stale air wheezing out of old accordion bellows. To achieve this, I had to rethink my entire creative process and unlearn the results of a lifetime of classical music study. (more…)

The World of Steam: The Clockwork Heart

December 30, 2013

WoS_Cover

I almost let 2013 slip by without a blog entry about one of the most unique projects I scored this year, “The World of Steam – The Clockwork Heart.” Here is the complete short film:  

“The Clockwork Heart” is the first episode of “The World of Steam,” a new webseries by Matt Yang King. The concept is elegant: a “Twilight Zone”-style anthology series set in the steampunk genre. During its run on Kickstarter, where it set a record for webseries fundraising, the pilot was endorsed by some very well known geek trendsetters, including Wired, Buzzfeed, Grant Imahara, Felicia Day (with whom I worked on “Eureka”) and Maurissa Tancharoen (with whom I work on “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”). However, none of these people had any influence on me deciding to score “The World of Steam.” I scored this film because it is just really damn good. (more…)

Holiday Gift Guide 2013

November 29, 2013

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Hoping to make your holiday shopping a bit easier, I’ve compiled all the records and merch that I’ve put out this year into one blog entry. Any soundtrack geek on your ‘Nice’ list will dig this stuff. And geeks on your ‘Naughty’ list as well!  🙂

T-SHIRTS:

13Notes_Tshirt

I’m thrilled to announce that Sparks & Shadows has released t-shirts of my iconic “Bear McCreary: Thirteen Notes” design. Originally unveiled during my 2009 “Music of Battlestar Galactica” tours, these notes are in the frakkin’ ship! 🙂 Fans have been asking for shirts for years and thanks to the good folks at S&S, its finally happening!

CLICK HERE TO ORDER.  Shirts are available for $21.98, in a wide variety of sizes and colors, and they ship internationally.

(more…)

Blog Archives

Projects

© 2022 Bear McCreary. For promotional purposes only. Images and audio are copyright of their respective copyright owners. Website by stateofthedesign.com

Twitter Facebook Youtube