Mercury KX is thrilled to announce today’s release of the single “Beauty Is In The Detail,” from the forthcoming OST of the Sundance 2020 winning feature film ‘The Reason I Jump’ by award-winning composer Nainita Desai. A soundtrack that has already been nominated for both a BIFA and Cinema Eye Honors Award for Best Music Score. Listen to ‘Beauty Is In The Detail’ here.
Like the book upon which the film is based, Desai’s score opens a door to a constellation of divergent ways of experiencing reality. The aim was to evoke the intense sensory worlds described in the book with a Dolby Atmos 360 soundtrack. Distinctions were made between the musical worlds of the different characters in the soundtrack, using different instrumentation. True to the film’s themes, Nainita sought authenticity towards Autism and Neurodiversity, Elisabeth Wiklander, cellist with the LPO is autistic and a cultural ambassador for the National Autistic Society and her contribution brought great sensitivity and perception.
“‘Beauty Is In The Detail’ accompanies the paintings created by Amrit — one of the non-verbal characters in the film. The song represents the beauty of the neuro-diverse world and how the characters perceive the detail in objects before seeing the whole picture unfold before them, and the piece tries to mirror that aesthetic. Daniel Pioro (‘Phantom Thread’) is the featured violinist on the track,” says Nainita Desai.
Nainita is an Ivor Novello, BIFA, Cinema Eye Honors nominee; a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit, and the IFMCA Breakthrough Composer of 2020. Film4 recently labelled her as one of the top 5 ‘composers of 2020 who should be on your radar’. Recent projects include amongst others, the music for Oscar 2020 nominated and BAFTA & Cannes winning feature documentary ‘For Sama’, No.1 Netflix series in India ‘Bad Boy Billionaires’, ‘American Murder’, Netflix’s most watched documentary to date and the BBC drama series Unprecedented (feat. James Norton, Olivia Williams & Gemma Arterton).
With musical foundations that are rooted in world music, Nainita has moved seamlessly between working with orchestras, fusing her collection of custom made instruments, electronics and found sound.
Coupled with a background in sound design and technical innovation that fuels her powerful emotive scores, her immersive approach involves deeply researched collaborations to find voices not usually heard, creating sounds that are truly unique.
Nainita Desai was born and brought up in London to Indian parents and her eclectic musical upbringing led her to studying the sitar, piano, guitar, table, singing and the violin. As a sound designer she has worked on feature films for Bertolucci (Little Buddha); and Werner Herzog (Lessons Of Darkness). Her passion for music technology has also led her to working in music engineering alongside Peter Gabriel during the legendary Real World Recording Week sessions, as well as working with acclaimed artists such as Billy Cobham, Daniel Lanois, Jane Sibbery, Nigel Kennedy, Sinead O’Connor, and Ravi Shankar.
“Nainita Desai’s score builds little symphonies out of ambient noise” –Indiewire (film review of ‘The Reason I Jump’)
“The editing is fluid and dreamlike; and the soundtrack of rhythmic noises and atonal music both soothes and startles.” –The Boston Globe (film review of ‘The Reason I Jump’)
“Quick cuts, predominantly in close-up combined with a gorgeous soundtrack put you in an alternate headspace… a viscerally stunning documentary.” –Reel News Daily (film review of ‘The Reason I Jump’)
“With footage as raw and dramatic as this, it’s a credit to composer Nainita Desai that her score remains restrained and understated throughout, emphasising subtler themes of endurance and empathy, while gesturing gently toward the possibility of hope – of love – even in the midst of tragedy” –The Guardian (film review of ‘For Sama’)
“…it’s all set to a stirring score by Nainita Desai… and never drags even through long sequences of footage..” -Vox.com (review of ‘American Murder’)
‘The Reason I Jump’ OST Album Track Listing
1.Time Has No Boundaries
2.Beauty Is In The Detail
3.I, Too, Exist
4.Floating Into Focus
5.Shaking The Ropes Loose
6.Memories And Images
7.Outside The Flow Of Time
8.Drowning In A Sea Of Words
9.The Reason I Jump
10.Green Boxes
11.The Prettiness Of A Dandelion
12.Imaginings
13.Forever Swaying
14.Permission To Be Alive
15.Faulty Robot
16.The Sensory World