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One Week soundtrack a musical loot bag

On March 6, the Canadian film One Weekwill premiere in theaters. And, if my prediction is correct, it’ll take less…

By Amanda Ash , in The Indie Files: A commentary on emerging Canadian music , on January 26, 2009 Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

On March 6, the Canadian film One Weekwill premiere in theaters.

Wintersleep vocalist Paul Murphy rocking out at the inaugural Pemberton Festival. Photo by myself.
Wintersleep vocalist Paul Murphy rocking out at the inaugural Pemberton Festival. Photo by myself.

And, if my prediction is correct, it’ll take less than one week for the soundtrack to this film to catch everyone’s attention. 

The movie features songs from some of Canada’s most talented indie artists such as Great Lake Swimmers, Joel Plaskett, Stars, Melissa McClelland, Wintersleep, LIGHTS, Luke Doucet and Sunparlour Players

Ah, yes. I can already see the hipsters tugging at their scarves to ease the heat of anticipation.

One Week tells the story of a young man (former Dawson’s Creek actor Joshua Jackson) who’s diagnosed with cancer. Instead of heading straight into treatment, he decides to travel across Canada from Toronto to Tofino on a vintage motorcycle in order to find meaning in his life.

The film reminds me a lot of another Canadian flick, Juno. Like Juno, One Week won’t feature dazzling special effects or an all-star cast. Rather, its the movie’s simple story line and timeless themes that will capture indie audiences.

The same goes with the One Week soundtrack. There are no big-label artists to carry the film along. Instead, it’s the little guys and gals pitching together to paint a picture of what traveling across Canada really sounds like.

According to Daniel J. Levitin’s book This Is Your Brain On Music, “we create … memory links between a particular set of notes and a particular place, time, or set of events.” In other words, having indie artists provide the background music to a universally-themed movie like One Week or Juno is highly beneficial to said artists, all thanks to visual association.

In Juno, the visually familiar themes of making mistakes and individual eccentricity will always be characterized by that Moldy Peaches song “Anyone Else But You.” Similarly, the air self-discovery presented visually in One Week—should it be performed well, of course—will forever ingrain in viewers’ minds the soul-searching songs we hear in the background.

I’ve interviewed musicians such as The Jealous Girlfriends and The 88 who’ve gone on to say they owe much of their success to movies and television shows. For them, having music on a hit series like The L Word or The O.C. is sort of like being signed to a major label. 

Nothing can promote your music more than the magic of moving pictures.

Which is why I can never listen to Lady Gaga‘s “Paparazzi” anymore without thinking about Gossip Girl‘s Blair Waldorf and the scene where she discovers her boyfriend is a Lord.

That being said, I sure hope One Week decides to use the Great Lake Swimmers as the background music for a sexy, shirtless montage featuring Joshua Jackson.

I’ll be listening to their music on repeat for days if that’s the case.

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