John Mehrmann – Honeydew CD

John Mehrmann – Honeydew

Honeydew is a rural cinematic scare written and directed by Devereux Milburn and stars Sawyer Spielberg, Malin Barr and Barbara Kingsley. Described by writer/director Milburn as a “modern-day Hansel and Gretel narrative,” Honeydew follows Rylie (Malin Barr) and Sam (Sawyer Spielberg) on a camping-trip-gone-wrong. Mehrmann’s soundtrack to this underground horror feast is an eerie organic assembly of human and animal groans, mumbles, vocals, meat and metal percussion.

Mehrmann’s (Maine, USA) online biography lists him as a composer for choirs, movies, orchestras, soloists, kids’ shows, commercials, and churches; a pianist, singer, conductor, percussionist, and accordionist; the music director at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Auburn, Maine; a member of the Bangor Symphony percussion section; and a teacher, at Bay Chamber Music School in Rockport, Maine, and at the University of Maine at Augusta.

In the score’s accompanying notes Mehrmann explains: “When I started to write the soundtrack for Honeydew, my first few tracks were for fairly traditional instruments, but the director made it clear that he didn’t want that, and he encouraged me to get weirder and weirder. I recorded the entire album with a single mic in my living room, using whatever sounds were at hand namely, my voice, my body, long kitchen knives, glasses filled with water, little percussion instruments and sound effects. The fleshy body percussion, mouth noises and kitchen utensils were not really consciously chosen. But in retrospect they are the absolutely perfect ‘instruments’ for this film. I’m a percussionist and vocalist, among other things, and a lot of the soundtrack represents a hybrid of those two worlds.”

The main theme of the soundtrack is an eerie, whining, fragile tone accompanied by glassy, tinkling percussion in a score full of unnerving dissonance and chaos.

Primal vocalizations, wordless mutterings, creepy whispering, whistling, anarchic yelping, and overlapping glossolalia that sounds like a chorus of medieval monks chanting and babbling across and on top of each other. Despite being a relative newcomer to film music, Mehrmann is clearly a composer with huge talent; and Honeydew is one of the weirdest, but most compelling and fascinating, scores in modern times.

“Just be prepared for the fact that, if you do listen to this, you will likely be embarking on one of the weirdest film music experiences of your life.” – moviemusicuk.us

Tracklist:
01 Honeydew
02 Mystic Mumbles
03 The Box
04 Goldberg Variation No. 1
05 Shadow Voices
06 That’s the Spirit
07 Cupcakes – Knife Play
08 Rylie
09 The Truck
10 The Post
11 Security System – Gunni
12 Delilah
13 Bright Eyes and Sweet Smiles
14 O Holy Night
15 Goldberg Variation No. 18

Label: Svart Records
Released: 2021