Marcelo Cervone’s latest cinematic marvel, the original soundtrack for ‘Imagine If Black Boys Just Smiled at Each Other’, an independent short film by Kenton Jordan Thomas, is a surreal blend of cinematic, electronic, and ambient music that is thought provoking and emotive.
A composer, based in London, Marcelo Cervone’s work on this composition is a clear indication of the man’s masterful command over the cinematic edge that he was ensured of creating a soundtrack for. The results are sublime. Calculated, mature, and greatly varied, the little-under-5-minutes piece shifts fluently, smoothly, and swiftly from harsh and dangerous electronic beginnings to provocative and colorful, piano-led ambience that glides the majority of the piece as it grinds to a serene halt.
The gentle piano arpeggios are present throughout the piece, taking a short break only as the orchestral choir calls its calls before the abrupt end of harshness and the introduction of the pads-driven ambience. The professional restraint in Cervone’s handling of the choir, the abrasive synth arpeggios to the synth strings in the ambient section, the snippets of spoken word, all the way to the introduction of slightly more intricate piano work in the piece’s final chapters are all clear hallmarks of a composer who knows how to set a scene, and how to shift it into another scene with silken smoothness and precision.
Cervone’s work for ‘Imagine If Black Boys Just Smiled at Each Other’ is an auditory cinematic delight that alarms the senses, then soothes them, and between the two states a capable composer is hard at work laying down seemingly infinite musical pieces into a beautiful, nuanced tapestry of sound.