Cliff Martinez (Drive)

Film scores don't often chart, but when they do, it's for good reason. In 2011, that happened to the piercing, airy, enigmatic score for Nicholas Winding Refn's neo-noir Drive, starring Ryan Gosling as a nameless Hollywood stunt driver turned getaway driver. It was a minimalist throwback to the car-based crime films of the '70s and '80s, fueled by Refn's own arthouse aesthetic and Gosling's stoic performance.

But even more than Gosling's scorpion jacket, it's the music of Drive that endures in the pop culture consciousness a decade on. When the score came out, it reached #4 on the iTunes charts and reached the Billboard 200. Much of that is due to the classic synthwave tracks by Kavinsky feat. Lovefoxxx ("Nightcall") and College feat. Electric Youth ("A Real Hero"), to be sure, but it's also down to Cliff Martinez's moody, atmospheric scoring.

Martinez, a Grammy-nominated composer (and former member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) who's worked most notably on the scores of Steven Soderbergh, pulled out some of his eeriest, most interesting work for Drive. Analog synths dance with a mysterious instrument called the Cristal Baschet to help sell the '80s-tinged mood.

For the film's tenth anniversary (and on the eve of the soundtrack's rerelease on vinyl courtesy of Lakeshore Records), I sat down with Martinez to talk about his early days as a composer, how it feels to have a film score actually make the charts, and what exactly a Cristal Baschet is anyway. (Also, listen for a very surprising cameo from an out-of-breath Nicholas Winding Refn. I kid you not.)