I Carry You With Me, director Heidi Ewing’s deeply moving film about an aspiring chef who leaves his partner in Mexico to make the dangerous journey to New York, has been earning countless accolades. Complementing the poignant story is composer Jay Wadley’s beautifully evocative score. Today, Vehlinggo premieres two cues to give you a taste of the official album coming Friday from Milan Records, the release of which coincides with the film’s theatrical debut.
The Brooklyn-based Wadley recently composed the music for Charlie Kaufman’s fantastic I’m Thinking of Ending Things and contributed to Vehlinggo’s 2020 year-end article. On the LGBTQ+ drama I Carry You With Me, he deftly blends richly crafted electronic soundscapes, passionate piano parts, and a deeply human orchestra to augment the most joyous and the most heartrending scenes. Today’s tracks, “One Year” and “Ivan’s Chance,” are great examples of the depth and breadth of Wadley’s work on this film. They are among 19 tracks on the Milan album that are lush and as meaningful on their own, as they are as part of this captivating film.
“In the score for I Carry You With Me, I aimed to create a vibrant sense of nostalgia and longing using a combination of textural electronics and piano, string orchestra and some familiar sourced sounds from the streets of Mexico,” Wadley said. “[Ewing] sent me a collection of sounds she recorded in the streets to inspire the sound world and make unique connections to the specific sense of time and place. One of the most prominent sounds you can hear woven into the score is the sound of the Camotero whistle from the food trucks in Mexico. I tuned and stretched out the whistle to use as a musical punctuation and thematic device to help call back to Ivan’s childhood memories working the streets with his father.”
(A note: There are a few seconds of silence at the beginning of each embed, but stick it out. Once the music hits, you’ll be engaged throughout.)
About I Carry You With Me
Sony Pictures Classics’ I Carry You With Me premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. The film, based on true love, shows us a decades-spanning romance that begins in Mexico between an aspiring chef (Armando Espitia) and a teacher (Christian Vázquez). Their lives restart in incredible ways as societal pressure propels them to embark on a treacherous journey to NYC with dreams, hopes, and memories in tow. For more information, you can visit the film’s website and check out the trailer below.
I Carry You With Me (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Tracklisting
- Bar Franco
- Chiles En Nogada
- Sandra
- Complicated Boyfriend
- Gerardo’s Flashback
- You Can’t Take Him From Me
- Take That Off
- One Year
- We Are Not Going To Die
- The Letter / New York
- I’m Proud of You
- He Should Come Back
- Reunited
- Ivan’s Chance
- You Came To Me
- I Just Can’t See It
- Dad’s In the Hospital
- There’s No Path
About Jay Wadley
Wadley is New York-based composer and two-time winner of the Charles Ives Award. He is co-founder of the Brooklyn-based Found Objects Music Productions with fellow composer and Vehlinggoland favorite Trevor Gureckis (Servant, Bloodline). In addition to I Carry You With Me and I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Wadley has composed the music for Emma Tammi’s Blood Moon (from Hulu/Blumhouse’s Into The Dark Horror anthology series), and Season 2 of Amazon’s Emmy-nominated series Modern Love, among other things.
