In his latest Secret History of Film Music column, Philip Brophy considers scores by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, who creates an aesthetic of decay for a Black context

Philip Brophy analyses Colin Stetson’s use of the saxophone’s physical dimensions to evoke the disturbed voices and bodies of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) and Hereditary (2018)

In his latest Secret History of Film Music column, Philip Brophy explores how the signifiers of Black musics in Swarm are fragmented to indicate its main character’s psychosis

In his latest Secret History of Film Music column, Philip Brophy analyses the musicalisation of purgatory in Japanese sci-fi series Alice In Borderland

In his latest Secret History of Film Music column, Philip Brophy considers how Justin Hurwitz manipulates, distorts, multiplies and caricatures jazz traditions in his collaborations with director Damien Chazelle

In his latest Secret History of Film Music column, Philip Brophy considers the ways in which Bobby Krlic’s psych-horror scores trap the audience in Ari Aster’s protagonists’ terror

In his latest Secret History of Film Music column, Philip Brophy considers Michael Abels’s musicalisations of Black aspiration in Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) and Us (2020).

In his latest Secret History of Film Music column, Philip Brophy analyses the techno roots of Irène Drésel’s unrelenting score to Eric Gravel’s 2021 social critique Full-Time (À Plein Temps)

Philip Brophy analyses the musical rendering of emotional and cultural deception in Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s scores for Smile (2022) and season one of The White Lotus (2021)

In the third instalment of his rebooted Secret History of Film Music column, Philip Brophy analyses two horror scores by Gazelle Twin – Black Cab (2024) and Nocturne (2020) – and considers how psychological turmoil can be expressed in sound

In the second instalment of his rebooted Secret History of Film Music column, Philip Brophy analyses Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury’s scores for the Alex Garland films Civil War (2024) and Annihilation (2018)

Philip Brophy sets out his intentions for the return of his long running Wire column on film music