Clint Mansell used to lead anarchic British alternative band Pop Will Eat Itself before he made a comfortable transition into the world of Hollywood film scoring. His soundtracks for films like Requiem For A Dream, Black Swan, and The Fountain are iconic—moody, grand, and gorgeous—while pieces like "Lux Aeterna" in still appear in countless movie trailers today (not to mention a million amateur YouTube uploads). Still, Mansell's rock roots haven't left him completely: he sometimes takes on remix requests, adding his cinematic touch to artists like The Fauns and Gazelle Twin.
His latest reworking is for arena-sized U.K. rock band Foals. It's a pretty sensible pairing: their genres may be different, but both Foals and Mansell have a humungous sound, and both have cited post-rock bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Mogwai as influences. Mansell's version of "Give It All" from their recent album What Went Down is Big with a capital 'B,' all but removing the song's vocals and transforming it into a widescreen ambient panorama. In the composer's hands, it's stretched it out to almost eight minutes, a gentle mesmeric swirl slowly building up to its big release before ending back where it started.
