Composer John Medeski Talks The Curse, Oneohtrix Point Never and Nathan Fielder

Every once in a while A24, the powerhouse indie studio behind films like Ari Aster’s Hereditary or the Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once, blesses TV viewers with a show that ranges from glitter and drug-fueled extravaganzas (Euphoria) to slightly too addicting comedy dramas (Beef). Of course, for every dozen golden eggs, there’s got to be one we’d rather collectively forget about and move on (here’s looking at you, The Idol).

While it’s tempting to believe there’s some sort of Midas touch magic going on, it pretty much comes down to giving unconventional creatives a chance when all statistical odds are stacked against them. Finding someone equally mad and committed helps, too. How else do you think Donald Glover and Hiro Murai managed to convince studio heads to air Atlanta, one of the most original shows of the last decade (they “Trojan-horsed FX”, Glover told The New Yorker)? Or Eric Andre, “flat broke” and high on Space Ghost Coast to Coast gags, got the generation-defining comedy The Eric Andre Show off the ground (it was rejected pretty much by every reputable network, except for Adult Swim)?

Luckily, there wasn’t much convincing needed to be done for The Curse, Nathan Fielder’s and Benny Safdie’s creative endeavor, since both A24 and Showtime know exactly what these provocateurs are capable of. Playing philanthropic newlyweds who are trying to get their reality show about building eco-friendly housing off the ground, Fielder—the socially awkward punching bag Asher—and Emma Stone—the artist patron Whitney, who is trying to escape her parents’ controversial legacy—make quite a team. Add Safdie’s sleazy, semi-functioning alcoholic-cum-TV producer Dougie into the mix, along with a curse cast by a young Somali girl, and things really start to get weird. Slowly at first, like the creeping shots, which make you feel like a Peeping Tom, and then, as the show progresses, ramping it up until you find yourself in a hall of mirrors.

If it isn’t obvious already, there are many reasons that make The Curse a compelling watch. For starters, during hour-long episodes, barely anything happens. You might watch Dougie take a couple of shots of Fielder and Stone showing their energy-efficient home to potential buyers, or Stone trying to win over her Indigenous artist “friend” who was profiled by the New York Times by all means necessary. Then the credits roll and you’re left there scratching your head, unpacking just what makes the show so unsettling. At the same time, it’s equally addicting in the way that slow-burning shows like Better Call Saul or the bouncing DVD logo screensaver can be.

While the glacial pace of the show is the ultimate antithesis to Safdie’s anxiety-inducing oeuvre, the same, however, can’t be said about its soundtrack. Produced by Benny’s trusted musical muse Daniel Lopatin—the guy behind Oneohtrix Point Never, who scored both of their films, Good Time and Uncut Gems—John Medeski’s synthy score for The Curse is anything but mellow.

Like the show itself, Medeski’s melodies resist easy categorization, and trying to put a finger on them can often feel like reading Fielder’s self-deprecating characters. Part spiritual and part wavering—like the mirrored exterior of Asher and Whitney’s home—The Curse sounds like a synthesizer in need of some holy water. Just listen to “Asher’s Dilemma,” which ranges from piercing synths to tormented Gregorian chanting from pixelated Ninth Circle of Hell, or Tangerine Dream-ish “We Do This All the Time” and hear for yourself.

Naturally, Medeski, an established avant-garde jazz community figure and one-third of the Medeski Martin & Wood collective, was lost for words when tasked with describing what we’re hearing. “It’s really hard to put into words,” the 58-year-old keyboardist admitted, eventually calling it “a mood” (which it absolutely is). After all, he’s a musician. And why use words when you can say all that needs to be said with a cosmically funky chord progression? Luckily for us, the Curse composer managed to conjure up more words without the help of the trusty Moog synthesizer and tell Paste why Safdie and Lopatin’s pitch—involving no more than Alice Coltrane’s “Jagadishwar”—was a no-brainer, and what the enigmatic comedic genius Nathan Fielder is like behind the camera.

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Paste Magazine: Coming off the show yourself, what do you think about it? Have you been watching it since it aired?

John Medeski: I’ve watched it, yes. I think it’s incredible. And I’ve gone to some of the screenings, too—they’ve been showing The Curse in movie theaters in New York as it’s coming out. I think the show is great. Like really great. I have actually seen a lot of it many times, and I haven’t gotten tired of it. Everything about it is hardcore all the way.

It’s pretty difficult to put a finger on The Curse emotionally and tonally speaking. How would you describe the sound of your score?

I haven’t really thought about that [laughs]. For me the music sort of describes itself. I use music as the language. It’s really hard to put into words. I guess, the music is definitely moody in a way. It’s not happy. But it’s not sad either. There’s also a slight spiritual feel to it. And that was actually the idea from the beginning. We got together with those guys [Benny and Nathan], and we did a recording session before they even started shooting. They had the script on, and they had certain ideas, but we got together because they wanted to try some things as they were cutting and shooting.

From what I’ve heard in some of these Q&A panels that we did, Benny and Nathan would meet somebody in the town and they would either adapt or create a new character for that person—just because that person was perfect [for the role]. So everything, including figuring out where they’re going to shoot that day, pretty much evolved. It was very organic. As a result, the music evolved, too. I think we’ve used very little from the very first session we did. As they started shooting and sending me dailies, I figured our first idea was the vibe and the feeling but the actual music wasn’t going to work. It was almost too musical.

Have you worked on anything like this before?

No [laughs]. I mean, I just don’t know if there’s anything like it, you know? I’m not personally interested in doing film scoring. I love film scores, especially the older ones. But in general, I haven’t really pursued that work because [in order] to break into the film world you will have to do a lot of stuff for free. There’s a whole way to walk up the ladder. And at the end of the day, it’s not my goal to be at home doing film scores for generic things. If somebody knows who I am and what I do, then I will do it.

When these guys, Benny and Nathan, talked to Daniel [Lopatin] about what they were thinking for the music, Daniel thought of me. So when they asked me, I was like “Yes!” three seconds in before I even heard the whole pitch. Because I love all of their work and the fact that they were coming to me because of my music.

So it was just Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) calling you up and saying, “Hey, we have this great show going on. Do you want to join?”

Well, there is another guy named Randall Dunn…

He did Mandy and Candyman, right?

He does all kinds of stuff. He has produced Bjork, he’s produced records with me for this band called DRKWAV. Randall is just a great engineer and has a great musical sensibility. So Daniel and Randall share a space in Brooklyn where they both each have a studio. And Randall was going to be involved with The Curse, in terms of recording and mixing. He actually called me first and said, “Hey, are you interested in this?” I then talked to Daniel, then with Benny and then we all met.

They played me this Alice Coltrane song “Jagadishwar,” which plays at the end of the first episode. And they said, “This is how we hear the music. We want this.” They didn’t want it to just follow the scene and be sort of like a play-by-play version of what was happening [on screen]. The idea was that the music was going to be almost like another observer. That’s why the music in the show sometimes can be a little ominous or scary.

Besides Alice Coltrane, what musical references were you given when you just started working on The Curse?

None, really. They had a couple of pieces from other people’s works that they would use in a scene just to sort of get a feel for it. But most of it I came up with my own head.

So there were no temp scores given by Benny? I’m only asking because I’ve heard that was Daniel’s experience on Uncut Gems.

There was some stuff in there as temp scores, sure. But it was very much like they were not attached [because] they were very open to it. If I had a completely different idea, they would check it out and be very honest about what was working or what wasn’t working for them.

Speaking of music being another character in the show—how do you balance it out so that it doesn’t feel overwhelming or steal all the attention when it plays?

That was the challenge. If you noticed, there aren’t many repeating themes in the score. That’s because the story evolves. It keeps changing. And I really love the idea that there’s really nothing comfortable about the show. The music is also that. But the score is not supposed to be uncomfortable. It’s only supposed to be evolving. There were only a couple of scenes that were written for the picture and then used like that. But it was usually like, we try something out and they would have something to say. I felt so comfortable with their taste and their choices that I would give them more than one thing. And sometimes they would use something that I gave them for another scene, which was great because the music is a mood. It’s an atmosphere. And how you superimpose these atmospheres can change the feel of the scene.

Was it easy to tap into the mood of The Curse straight away? I feel like with the creative freedom you were given, it could potentially be paralyzing if the project didn’t resonate with you.

Yeah. I felt very comfortable for the most part. I guess it ties into what I was just saying about it being self-evolving. The storyline was set, but the details of it were very self-creating. The three main actors, Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder and Benny, evolved into their parts. How they became those parts had a lot to do with what they ended up feeling. And I think it’s the same for music—who I am and my perspective on this became part of the fabric. The music was not leading or imitating the scene. It’s more like a perspective. And I can have a lot of perspectives on things. So I was happy to let them choose the ones that worked for them.

What was it like to work with Oneohtrix Point Never? Did you know each other from before?

Daniel was great. He’s a great energy and super inspiring. I knew of him and his music, and he knew about me. But we had never met before. He was involved more in the very beginning, I think. At a certain point, Daniel would dip in and out just to get the initial feeling. I think he eventually realized that I was able to write the music and Randall was able to get it to them. He just trusts you. It’s the way I look at music, actually. If I have to put a band together, I get musicians who I don’t have to teach how to play and what to play—I get them because of who they are and what they do. Working on The Curse was very much like that.

There’s some stuff that he and I played together. We record a lot of stuff just so that we’d get into a certain mode. And then we would do several versions of that idea just to have because every performance is a little different. We wanted to keep that spirit of spontaneity in the music, which is part of what gives it the feeling it has—it’s composed, but not composed by looking at a clock.

Did you listen to Daniel’s previous stuff he made for Uncut Gems and Good Time?

I knew of those films and I’ve seen them. But I didn’t go back and revisit them. I figured if they wanted that, they would’ve just had Daniel do it [laughs]. I actually try to keep clear of too many other influences so that the music would have its own life. I guess that’s the other reason why I don’t do a lot of film scores—a lot of film scoring is simply imitating previous things. I’m not interested in that.

That makes sense. What was it like working with Benny? Is he a hands-on guy? Was he in the studio a lot?

Benny definitely loves being in the studio and working. He didn’t play anything, but I should have had him play. He is a huge music fan and knows a lot of different kinds of music. Benny’s relationship with it makes the music in his films very important. He thinks about it from every angle—musically, cinematically and philosophically. And I do think that it did sort of evolve into a much more synthesizer-based soundtrack. Maybe that was his unspoken influence. What surprised me was that both [Benny and Nathan] were really open towards weird sounds—sounds that aren’t too slick or too obvious. So I had a couple of things that were broken and they’d make these weird sounds just by the nature of the fact that they were broken. And they would go, “We love that. This adds another dimension.” It was definitely right up my alley.

Were you familiar with Nathan Fielder before joining the show?

I didn’t know him personally. But I definitely watched Nathan for You and The Rehearsal. I love those shows. Nathan is a very unique person. He is actually very funny in the way that you would imagine he is. But he also works really hard. Nathan was actually also very serious when we were working on things. Very detail-oriented. Which is interesting, since a lot of his shows have that reality show kind of feeling. To pull that stuff off in a way that feels real, you have to be aware of a lot of details.

It’s hard for me to describe, but both of those guys are very open to spontaneity and unexpected things to happen. At the same time, very aware of how all that plays into the final idea. They simply allow things to happen, which allows for these amazing details to happen naturally and organically—maybe even something you didn’t expect [that’s] better than what you would’ve come up with.

What was your favorite part of working on this project?

One of my favorite moments was after I had just watched what we did [for] the first session. They started sending out the dailies as they were filming. And there were two things about them. One was when we got into the recording studio, I didn’t realize that that was Benny in the show. I was watching it on a little screen, not paying that much attention. I was like, “Who is that guy? Is that an actor?” Then, he just looks at me and goes, “That’s me.” [laughs] That’s one of my favorite “aha!” moments. Another thing was watching the rough cuts in dailies just how amazing Emma Stone is as an actress. Like how deep she got into that part. Of course, she’s a great actress. But that’s a deep part, and just seeing her do the same scene a couple of different times, seeing the little different things she’d put into each of the performances of the same scene—that was great to have that perspective and get to really appreciate the artistry.

What are your favorite film scores that you like to come back to from time to time?

There’s an old 1994 movie called Laura. That’s one of my favorite film scores of all time. Obviously, 2001: A Space Odyssey has a pretty incredible film score. I would also say Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. I recently saw Emma Stone’s new movie Poor Things—the score is incredible. I really enjoyed its score. It’s very different than how we did things [on The Curse]. It’s very present, but it’s incredible.