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tells the tale of a real-life 16th-century slave who became a samurai. As the story goes, an East African man, whose original name is unknown, was moved to a European monastery in 1579. At the monastery, he worked for an Italian Jesuit who taught him many languages, including Japanese, so that he could accompany the Jesuit on a trip to Japan. When they arrived, they found that many Japanese people had never seen a black man. Oda Nobutada, one of the most powerful samurais of the time, heard about the visitor and summoned him to his court. Oda Nobutada was impressed with the stranger. He gave him a name, Yasuke, and taught him Bushido, the way of the samurai. When a rival clan raided the village, Oda Nobutada was killed and Yasuke was sent back to live at the monastery.Traditionally, this is where the story of Yasuke ends. But for left-field hip-hop and electronic music producer Jeremi Johnson, aka 10th Letter, it’s just the beginning.“My grandfather fought in Japan during World War II,” Johnson says. “I was studying the culture, and I had this moment where I felt like I was tapping into his spirit. He went to Japan and fought these people who he didn’t necessarily have any problems with. And he was doing it for a country that treated him almost as badly as they treated the people he was fighting. Then, when I learned about the story of Yasuke, I knew I wanted to shine a light on this moment of black excellence in history that is seldom told.”For his upcoming album
The Revenge, out Sept. 23 via Psych Army Records, Johnson wrote a soundtrack for how he envisions Yasuke’s life played out. It’s a story filled with high adventure and supernatural encounters as Yasuke strikes pacts with demons in Japan’s Aokigahara, better known as the Suicide Forest. Johnson based his story on Japanese folktales and ideas derived from modern manga.“I didn’t seek it out,” Johnson says. “The story came to me.”
The Revenge scores a film that only exists in his imagination. Johnson is part of a small but dedicated scene of Atlanta-based musicians who have embraced the art of the film score — even when there’s no film associated with the music.Composer Ben Lovett has defined his career scoring Atlanta-based films such as
The Signal and
Synchronicity. Ian Deaton and Thomas Barnwell scored director Alex Pinney’s
The Arbalest, which won a 2016 Grand Jury Prize at SXSW and screened at the 2016 Atlanta Film Festival. But Deaton and Barnwell, along with other artists such as
Gregorio Franco (Greg Knap of Atlanta hardcore act Dropout) have had their creative antennae tuned into similar conceptual frequencies. They’ve crafted mostly instrumental musical opuses filled with cinematic imagery — soundtracks for films of the mind’s eye. 10th Letter’s
The Revenge, Deaton’s
Atlanta Crime Wave, and Barnwell’s self-titled release under the moniker Picture One are dramatic scores filled with heart-pounding highs and atmospheric tension.
No value assignedSince 2011 Johnson has built a large body of avant-garde work as 10th Letter that includes a multicolored universe of beat-driven solo excursions such as 2013’s
Weapons and the lush and layered ensemble-based work on 2015’s
Portals and Compasses. On
The Revenge, the individual songs are layered into a graceful, flowing whole. He works with other instrumentalists and incorporates vocals on “Ghost Vapor” and “Rōnin” to carry the story along. His voice sounds phantasmal as he sings lyrics such as “Don’t fear the shadows they are your closest friends” on “Rōnin.” Each song unfolds as though it were guided by a hidden hand.Johnson’s first album of 2016,
Escape from ATL, was meant to serve as both an homage to director and composer John Carpenter, and as a midsummer soundtrack for driving around the city.
Escape from ATL is a deluge of experimental hip-hop beats and electronic samples. Song titles such as “Edgewood Cobras vs. The Eastside Scorpions” and “Neo Atlanta” marry Johnson’s love for science fiction films and experimental hip-hop.Johnson spent two years working closely with multi-instrumentalist Daniel Friedman and longtime collaborator and composer Saira Raza on
The Revenge. He put together the more buoyant and fun
Escape from ATL as a break from the intense focus on
The Revenge.“He’d been working on such different kinds of music with the last couple of releases that I think
Escape from ATL was Jeremi’s way of showing off that he still makes beats,” Raza says.Johnson plays keys, Fender Rhodes, and MicroKorg, along with some bass and percussion on
The Revenge. Raza handles the majority of the vibraphone arrangements. Throughout songs such as “Circles” and “The Battle at Uji Bridge” a web of intricate samples and percussion takes shape as some of Johnson’s most complex work yet. But it’s “Ghost Vapor” and “Rōnin” where he steps into the unexplored realm of using his voice.“I don’t often show that side of myself,” he says. “So those are the songs that resonate with me the most.”On
Escape from ATL, muddy bass grooves and glitched-out textures and loops stir up a nuclear Atlanta vibe.“I would be lying if I said there’s a story to
Escape from ATL that’s as realized as what I did with
The Revenge,” Johnson says. “
Escape from ATL is more a tip of the hat. I wanted to name the songs based on certain movies and give people cookies.” “Shape Shifter” is a nod to the creature in
The Thing. “Nada’s Dream” is for Rowdy Roddy Piper in
They Live, and “Lo Pan’s Return” refers to
Big Trouble In Little China.
Escape from ATL caught Deaton’s attention with its cover art — a black-and-white drawing of the city in ruins.“I immediately loved it,” Deaton says. “I looked at all the song titles and all the local slants to them, and it was like synthy stuff, you know?”Both
Escape from ATL and Deaton’s
Atlanta Crime Wave are Atlanta-centric and heavily influenced by John Carpenter and ’80s genre films. They build on similar themes and offer reactions to blight, crime, beauty, and the city’s character.“It was strange how many parallels there were,” Barnwell says.Deaton and Barnwell run the DIY label Deanwell Global Music. “I talked to Thomas and said, ‘We have to put this guy out,’” Deaton says. “I hadn’t even finished listening to the tape yet, and he said, ‘OK, let’s do it.’”A cassette release for
Escape from ATL is slated for this month.Deaton’s interest in scoring films — real or not — began around 2008 when his hardcore band Fag Static released an LP titled
Ficcanaso. The album’s title, cover art, songs, and lyrics fit together like pieces of a crime thriller, although no clear album narrative was ever revealed.In conversation, Deaton and Barnwell talk at length about how film scores such as Wang Chung’s 1985 soundtrack for
To Live And Die in L.A., or Giorgio Moroder’s connection to most 1980s film composers influenced how they use music to create mood and tension, and to break from the traditional punk band approach to writing music.
No value assignedWith 2013’s
Atlanta Crime Wave, Deaton adapted a sound he refers to as “cop music” — brooding atmosphere sculpted from slow handclaps, echo effects, and menacing percussion on songs such as “E.A.P.D. Patrol” and “Buckhead Heist.” Barnwell explores a more Italo disco film score meets goth/coldwave instrumental sound on his Picture One release.The two began working together after Deaton says he “bluffed director Mike Brune into letting him work on the film
Congratulations! He was holding a fundraiser for production,” Deaton says. “I emailed and asked if anyone was doing the score. He said he didn’t want much music in the film, and I said I’d work for free.”Brune gave him the job. “I hung up and was like, ‘Fuck, I don’t own any recording equipment. What am I going to do?’” Deaton says. “I knew that Thomas had everything so I asked, ‘In exchange for using your studio, would you like to write with me and engineer?’”They share 50/50 authorship for the score to
Congratulations! (2013) and Adam Pinney’s 2016 film
The Arbalest. The pair has developed an efficient creative back and forth. Barnwell handles engineer duties, and they split composing work. “We have kind of developed an internal language that we speak to each other,” Barnwell says. “It’s getting faster and faster.”Both of them sing, play guitar, bass, drums, synth, and keyboards, and they both generate ideas. “If we had to sign some kind of publishing rights contact, I would be fully confident saying it’s 50/50,” Deaton says.As a team, Deaton and Barnwell are landing film score work, but opportunities for Atlanta post-production and composing jobs are slim. Deaton and Barnwell sat on an Atlanta Film Festival panel this year about composing with a low budget. They say they were the only composers on the panel from Atlanta who worked on low-budget films. The rest were from Los Angeles or New York, where most post-production work takes place. But it’s a logical next step for post-production studios to set up closer to where the films are being made.By creating the work, they hope to connect Atlanta’s music scene with Georgia’s film industry.“This whole thing was born out of a desire to work scoring films,” Deaton says. “Thomas and I actually are doing film work, but no one is asking us to make the albums that we actually want to make, and that’s why we do this.”10th Letter’s motivations with both
Escape from ATL and
The Revenge are born of similar desire.
“Once an idea is in my brain, and I can hear and see the art or the story behind it, and I can hear the music I feel obligated to manifest that into something physical,” Johnson says. “I have to get it out. It’s as simple as that.”