Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score for Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario (2015), a thriller set around the US–Mexico border, is built almost entirely from the bottom of the audible range. Villeneuve asked for a subtle kind of war music; Jóhannsson read that as war drums and recorded five percussionists in Berlin, Los Angeles and Budapest, then processed and edited the results into a shifting, tribal pulse.
Beneath it sit eight double basses and a cello section recorded in Budapest, contrabassoon, contrabass clarinets, tubas and trombones, and the 32-foot and 16-foot pipes of a large church organ in Copenhagen, captured for a rumble felt as much as heard. Jóhannsson cited the slow, punishing live shows of Swans as an inspiration and described wanting music that seems to rise from deep under the desert. Used sparingly, the score works like pressure rather than melody, and it brought Jóhannsson his second consecutive Oscar nomination for Best Original Score.