Tangerine

“Gorgeous. A perfectly cast, beautifully directed movie.” – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Tangerine is the landmark comedy-drama film from director Sean S. Baker (Starlet). Shot entirely on iPhone 5s cameras in Los Angeles, Tangerine follows a transgender prostitute on Christmas Eve who has just finished a prison sentence.
After finding out from her friend and fellow prostitute that her boyfriend and pimp has been cheating on her, she becomes enraged and takes to the streets to find her unfaithful partner.
The soundtrack paints an aggressive, surreal picture of Hollywood full of high-energy trap music and pumping electronic beats. The sound grabs you immediately and never lets go.
The CD comes with extensive liner notes by the director.

A Note From the Director:
'When we first set down the road to make Tangerine, I told my producers Darren Dean and Shih-Ching Tsou that they didn't have to budget for music. We were on a shoe-string budget plus I wanted to repeat a style that we used in one of my previous films, Take Out, a feature that I co-directed with Shih-Ching in 2004. In Take Out, Shih-Ching and I intentionally excluded music all together with the thought being that we were stripping away any emotionally manipulative tools. We shot Tangerine with this same thought in mind -- but the film had plans of its own. I noticed a tempo -- a melody -- you could even say a harmony that was captured through the vibrancy of my wonderful actors -- and Los Angeles itself. The visuals were asking for a score that I could not initially deliver... simply because I had not found the sound yet.
I always edit my films chronologically. By post-production, I had decided to have the opening credits play to a rendition of 'Toyland' by Harry Horlick and his Orchestra. As far as I knew, that would be the end of Tangerine's score. After the opening scene, in which our two leads lay down the exposition, our 'protagonist' Sin-Dee Rella storms out of Donut Time and tears down Santa Monica Boulevard. I didn't know how I was going to tackle the sound design of this sequence. Layered city sounds? Swishes? I didn't have a clue.
At this time, I was addicted to Vine, the popular app where users can share six-second-long looping video clips. One night, a Vine celebrity by the name of Wolf Tyla posted a video that single-handedly dictated the cutting and scoring style of Tangerine. Tyla, seventeen years old at the time, posted a video of her striking poses to a track of 'trap' music entitled 'Team Gotti Anthem.' Those six seconds hit me like a shot of adrenaline. It was at that moment I knew I had found the sound of the film. (Trap music is a genre of hip-hop based on use of the 808 Roland drum machine, pitched and re-sampled hiphop/rap vocals and various effects. The term 'trap' was literally used to refer to the place where drug deals are made and how it is difficult to escape the lifestyle. The term originated in Atlanta, Georgia where rappers such as Cool Breeze, Outkast and Ghetto Mafia were some of the first to use the term in their music.)
I found the full version of the song on Soundcloud. I laid it over my first cut of the scene and the beat of the music matched the rhythm of my cutting. It was meant to be. I reached out directly to DJ Lightup and DJ Heemie, two guys who were just graduating high school in Newark, NJ, and they were generous enough to give us their beautiful track for the film.
I turned to Soundcloud to discover more and it turned out to be an incredible tool for me (an independent filmmaker with no music budget). I found a wealth of material with super high production value posted by artists who were for the most part unsigned. It allowed me to reach out directly to them and if I was fortunate enough, acquire their track for the film.
When I got the scene in which Sin-Dee Rella smokes a cigarette outside of the subway station, I decided to mix it up a bit and go with a public domain Beethoven track (not on this compilation but easily accessible on the web) performed by The Musopen Symphony Orchestra. It is entitled Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 and is a composition written by Beethoven in 1807 for Heinrich Joseph von Collin's 1804 tragedy Coriolan. The main C minor theme represents Coriolanus' resolve and war-like tendencies (he is about to invade Rome), while the more tender E-flat major theme represents the pleadings of his mother to desist -- it couldn't be more fitting for the moment that Sin-dee is contemplating her mission to find Dinah, the 'fish.' At this point, I decided to go eclectic -- mixing in multiple genres but always keeping trap as our backbone.
So I truly must thank Tyla (@wolftyla), who is now a recording artist in her own right, for introducing me to trap and influencing me profoundly. And of course I would like to thank all the amazing artists who generously contributed to this soundtrack. For me, the music defines this film as much as the visuals. I would also like to thank our music wonderful supervisor Matthew Smith who saw all of this to the finish line.
There are some artists whose tracks could not be included on this soundtrack release due to space and/or contractual limitations. Their tracks are just as vital to the project and I suggest you seek them out. Those tracks are:
“Gna Gna” by Artush
“I Like It” and “Es Ko Erazn En” by Sirusho
'Coriolan Overture, Op. 62' performed by The Musopen Symphony Orchestra
“EVRYBDY” and 'Do You Speak Ikea?' by Mr. Batou
'Madd Man' by BrainDeaD
'Zero One Zero' (ft. Stephonik Youth) by Neil Davidge
'702' by Shaun Kerr’s Noise Lab
“Drone 1: Roots & Bones” by Chad Dyer
and of course 'Toyland' performed by Harry Horlick and his Orchestra
Now throw on your oversized pink headphones and take a stroll down Santa Monica Blvd with these tunes blasting in your ears.'
- Sean