Simon Fisher Turner
The Garden (Mute) 1991

This is my favourite film score/soundtrack of all time. I bought this on audio cassette in London's Tower Records in the mid-1990s and recently bought it on vinyl – I've listened to it constantly without ever owning a digital copy. The soundtrack is different to the film, it’s almost a whole new work of art in its own right. This is the pinnacle of soundtracks for me.

Mick Jagger
Performance (Warner Bros) 1970

My second choice is the soundtrack album to the 1970 Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg film Performance. This is more an eclectic mix of songs and pieces of score. Performance is one of my all-time favourite films, and features my favourite Rolling Stones track, although it’s technically a Mick Jagger song. “Memo from Turner” is worth getting the album for on its own, but there’s some real odd sounds and some crazy early synths. I think this soundtrack album is just as beguiling as the film is.

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
Wind River (Lakeshore/Invada) 2017

This is Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’s score for the Taylor Sheridan film from 2017. This is a more modern one, and this is a really haunting score. I didn’t know anything about the film but was sent the vinyl of the soundtrack by Invada, the label that put out my soundtracks. It is such a complete piece, I listened to this record for about a year before I saw the film and I was surprised that some of the vocal elements from Nick Cave are within the film as well – I thought they would be purely instrumental versions in the film but they are intact within the movie which is so effective. And the violin of Warren Ellis is absolutely astounding, and just beautiful production… this is a soundtrack that is on my turntable a lot.

Bob Dylan
Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid (CBS) 1973

I love Bob Dylan and this soundtrack is a brilliant album in its own right, but is also so beautifully complimentary to the work of Sam Peckinpah in the film. It’s quite short, again it’s an album that feels really of one piece. I love the fact that there are three versions of one song – “Billy 1”, “Billy 4” and “Billy 7” – and the soundtrack gave us “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”, one of Dylan’s most famous tracks. But the instrumentals are really where it’s at with this, and it’s funny at times. I don’t know how he does funny in instrumental so effortlessly but it’s a brilliant album, soundtrack and film.

Ry Cooder
Paris, Texas (Warner Bros) 1985

The return of Ry Cooder, who also features on the soundtrack for Performance. I’ve only seen this movie once, but I feel like I’ve seen it a lot more than that because every time I hear the soundtrack it evokes the landscape and atmosphere of the film. It has just the most beautiful slide playing, so memorable to the point of it almost being predictable now to have the soundtrack on a list like this, but there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s a magic piece of music.

Angelo Badalamenti
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (Warner Bros) 1992

I loved the soundtrack album that came out for the TV series as well, and obviously the theme that is so evocative with that title sequence. But I loved the Fire Walk With Me soundtrack, it’s the darker sibling of the TV series music and so unsettling. In some ways incredibly simple, working with simple themes but it conjures up that dark atmosphere of the film so beautifully. It’s not as assessible as the TV soundtrack, but you’re really rewarded by return visits to it. It’s playing quite a lot in my studio when I’m working.

Gwenno
BAIT (live score) 2020

Finally, this is BAIT, which is my film from 2019 but significantly, I’m not selecting my own score here, because that would be egomaniacal… this is the live score that my friend Gwenno created for the film. This was performed first at the BFI Southbank in NFT1 in January 2020. Gwenno was joined by Georgia Ellery who is in BAIT, but is also in Black Country, New Road and Jockstrap, for the score. Gwenno reimagined the soundtrack for the film, and it was an event that I will never forget and that I’m eternally grateful to her for doing, because changing the score completely changed the film and it allowed me, as the maker of the film, to sit in the audience and watch the film with a level of objectivity that otherwise I would never have had. It might seem like a bit of an ego trip, but it was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve had in the cinema – watching my film, reimagined through the soundtrack beautifully written by Gwenno.

Mark Jenkin discusses his work, practice, and the soundtrack to his latest film Enys Men, in The Wire 468. Wire subscribers can also read the interview online via the digital library.