Music Supervisor Tiffany Anders discusses some of the unusual music choices that capture the spirit of the series and how music is utilized in Episode 3 of Season 2, “Roofing.”
If, at its heart, “Reservation Dogs” is a story about a group of small children growing up and finding their way, the show about rural Oklahoma is itself. Especially the humor and tone of the series, the mix of mythology and the supernatural (characterized by the warrior spirit of Dallas Goldtooth with a sense of coolness), go through all the ways that this series has not only come from but this special place. Read also : Pachuquísmo | Performing Arts Series | The art school. ah. You can really see how the camera captures the unique details of the landscape or the vast green walls in the industrial decay.
But you can also hear how the show uses music. Some tracks offer an emotional feel and a place that feels universally relatable, but unique to the show.
The series does not have a single voice. Instead it’s a glorious mishmash of rock, punk, country, protest songs, rap, psychedelic, and also, respectfully in Part 2 of this new season, Tom Petty. However, the general aesthetic is, according to music supervisor Tiffany Anders, one that “has to sound DIY. It has to have some honesty and a kind of punk aesthetic whether it’s country music or indie. rock or Tom Petty. It has to be in its context. In episode 3 of this new season, “The Roof”, Anders and series creator Sterlin Harjo find a way to make one song for both.
The story is simple. Bear (D’Phircoon Woon-A-Tai) has been in a bit of a slump since the start of the season but he started working on the weekend helping out some of the Rez rooftops. Bear learns that one of the men in the scene (Michael Spears) is the father of her ex-boyfriend Daniel (Dalton Cramer), who committed suicide a year before the series began. Bear learns how to drive a nail as well as how to empathize with someone in pain – both equally important to the transition to manhood. At the end of the episode, Elora (Dvery Jacobs) reappears at Bear’s window, back in his life and Rez because her grandmother is dying. Bear is (if only slightly) better at handling this reverse phase than he was at the start of the episode. And if you thought the best music to make sense of it all was English psychedelic space from the 1980s, well, then congratulations you’re Sterlin Harjo.
At key moments throughout the episode, the show uses Spacemen 3’s “I Love You” to transcend both physical and emotional atmosphere. It begins first when Bear is trying to “age his gear” (that his mother just bought him; “It’s cool!”) to attract men, cover the arrival of the group and the arrangement and location, and appears after two important stories while Bear is working. “That surprised me because I had a song chosen for Uncle Charlie. Then everything was changed in Spacemen 3. And I was like, ‘this is even better,'” said Anders.
What makes it even better is that the track has a smooth heart-pumping base, which is perfectly matched when Uncle Charlie and Marc Don (Chad Charlie, who also shared Harjo’s story) drive Bear to the scene. There is restraint, repetition, and an unspeakable coldness about the way the song unfolds; Her laid-back vibe is everything Bear wants for himself, which makes the moments that start or stop playing that much more interesting. The show uses it to draw a sense of how Bear sees this potential path for himself, as well as how he doesn’t fit in or measure up to the voice yet. “I think that makes the whole show more real than what’s happening in Tulsa and not pigeonholing the kids,” Anders said. “You know, I like casting a wide net.”
Anders said she had to think more about young people and small towns when making music selections for the series. Some of it comes from hearing stories “about Harjo growing up there and going to concerts in Tulsa.” But, like Episode 3, some of it comes from the way the music creates a contrast to the action on the screen. Bear has an honest story about the growth and sadness of an old warrior’s spirit; but it falls on pieces of Porta-Johns decorated with graffiti (the bright red “Land Back” behind Woon-A-Tai’s shoulder is illuminating). The show supports the heartbreaking dialogue with perfect but accurate sound design, building noises and flows like Goldtooth riffs, but falling away and replaced by birdsong and more natural noise as he talks about the importance of sadness, ” so they know they can go. At the end of the scene, Spacemen 3 returns to the soundtrack, the bus still rolling, wordlessly showing all the ways life goes on.
The musical beauty of “Reservation Dogs” is its ability to dig beyond whatever is the first or most obvious impression; The show instead uses tracks that both guide the audience through the characters’ desires and dreams and provide a sense of perspective on how close (or often) they are to those desires. This, for Anders, is the music “texture” adds to the scene, and it can be smooth and subtle like Spacemen 3 or rougher and more, like the track she chose to give birth to Elora and Jackie (Elva Guerra) leaving the city in the first place.
“It has something amazing, something great. You can just put a hip hop song or whatever on the radio when they’re going out. But I feel like the fact that this is, you know, a 1970s country song about going out. adds such sadness and realism to the scene,” Anders said. “I like that they’re not playing characters, you know? Jackie’s wearing a Wutang shirt. They’re young. Have they heard this song? I doubt it, but I like that it brings that essence to the quality they’re leaving.”
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