An Alien World

The Audience Award winning documentary Chasing Coral has a powerfully charged soundtrack to accompany it. The first song from the soundtrack sets the tone for many themes that are explored throughout the film and in the score. The song begins, and you can hear the ocean weeping. The sounds sort of swirl around and develop into a soft, marching beat that starts building toward the climax of the song. By the halfway point, there's an optimism that wasn't anywhere in the first 60 seconds. When the strongest chord progression finally comes in (that serves as the foundation for many other songs in the soundtrack, perhaps most emotionally in Goodbye Lizard Island), it's unexpected and strong. The song ends in what sounds like a question, setting up what serves as a call to action for the film.

Coral is a relatively, unheralded piece of the ocean ecosystem. Generally only acknowledged for being interesting to look at and admire, partly because of how alien it feels. An Alien World feels similarly alien, with bizarre synthesizers and richly manipulated vocals recorded by MacWilliams. The soundtrack for Chasing Coral falls in a similar category, relatively unacknowledged, but deeply rewarding to explore.