Will Bates is an award-winning composer, multi-instrumentalist and founder of music production company Fall On Your Sword. As a solo artist and multi-instrumentalist, Bates has recorded and toured around the globe. As a saxophonist, Bates has collaborated with legendary artists ranging from 60’s icon Lulu to techno legend Marshall Jefferson.
Bates works frequently with director Mike Cahill, and the two weave mind-expanding narrative magic for TV and film. Cahill (Another Earth, I Origins) wrote and directed the new film, Bliss, which is being distributed by Amazon Studios and the soundtrack will be released by Milan Records. It tells the multi-layered story of a man whose life lacks purpose, and he soon finds that the world he inhabits might not be real.
We got to speak with the two about the score and how it enhanced the beats and purpose of the film. And when it comes to the perpetually whimsical Cahill, there is a purpose to everything you see and hear; many times, elements (sounds, set design, even entire sequences) can be so poetic because there’s multiple meanings to what’s on screen.
Bliss is a slick film that rewards on repeat viewings, and you can hear how the music ties to the two worlds where themes are repeated/expanded as the story progresses to an ending that is anything but definitive. In fact, viewers can having multiple ideas about the film’s message and resolution. It’s designed that way. Point: Cahill.
For this fun-filled chat, we again join our good friend Bryan Kluger of BoomStick Comics. We discuss Bates & Cahill’s working relationship, references to Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave‘, the sonic palette of the story, and we even get the duo to break down two of the film’s most dynamic and noteworthy scenes.
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An unfulfilled man (Owen Wilson) and a mysterious woman (Salma Hayek) believe they are living in a simulated reality, but when their newfound ‘Bliss’ world begins to bleed into the ‘ugly’ world they must decide what’s real and where they truly belong.
Bliss will be released as an Amazon Original on February 5, 2021.
