MOVIE MUSIC UK

Singer, songwriter and composer Scott Walker died in London on March 22, 2019, at the age of 76. The cause of death was not publicly announced.

One of the most singular figures in modern popular music, Walker travelled an extraordinary path from 1960s pop idol to uncompromising avant-garde composer. His involvement with cinema was comparatively limited, but his scores for Pola X, The Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux provided a remarkable late chapter to one of music’s most unpredictable careers.

Walker was born Noel Scott Engel in Hamilton, Ohio, on January 9, 1943, and grew up largely in California. After working as a child performer and session bass guitarist, he joined John Maus and Gary Leeds in the Walker Brothers. The trio moved to Britain in 1965 and became enormous stars with records including “Make It Easy on Yourself” and “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore),” Walker’s deep baritone making him one of the most distinctive singers of the era.

After leaving the group, Walker embarked on a remarkable solo career. The albums Scott, Scott 2, Scott 3 and Scott 4 combined orchestral pop, existential songwriting and his fascination with Jacques Brel. Following a lengthy period of declining commercial success, he gradually reinvented himself with increasingly experimental music, culminating in Tilt (1995), The Drift (2006) and Bish Bosch (2012). These dense, frequently unsettling works used unconventional percussion, dissonance and vast orchestral textures in ways that often seemed inherently cinematic.

His first substantial original film score came with Leos Carax’s Pola X (1999), an appropriately extreme adaptation of Herman Melville’s Pierre. Walker’s dark orchestral and electronic music matched the film’s descent from bourgeois elegance into sexual obsession and psychological disintegration, establishing the uncompromising approach that would characterize his later screen work. He had previously contributed “Man from Reno” to the French film Toxic Affair in 1993.

Walker returned to film scoring for actor Brady Corbet’s directorial debut The Childhood of a Leader (2015). Set in Europe after World War I and depicting the childhood of a future fascist dictator, the film inspired one of Walker’s most imposing compositions. Huge orchestral masses, pounding percussion and shrieking strings create an atmosphere of impending catastrophe, culminating in a ferocious finale. The score demonstrated how naturally the uncompromising language of Walker’s late albums could function within cinema.

Corbet reunited with him for Vox Lux (2018), starring Natalie Portman as a troubled pop superstar. Sia wrote the character’s songs, while Walker supplied the dramatic score, deliberately contrasting the glossy artificiality of contemporary pop with dark, ominous orchestral writing. It proved to be Walker’s final major musical project and was released only months before his death.

Walker also worked outside conventional recording and film, composing the contemporary dance piece And Who Shall Go to the Ball? And What Shall Go to the Ball?, curating the 2000 Meltdown festival and producing Pulp’s We Love Life. The documentary Scott Walker: 30 Century Man (2006), executive-produced by admirer David Bowie, helped introduce his extraordinary later work to a wider audience.

Walker is survived by his partner Beverly, his daughter Lee and a granddaughter.