What's the music for an alien attack? The soundtrack for murder, exorcism and revenge?
Screen composer Jed Kurzel, the master of ominous beats and discordant orchestration, has invented tunes for all these things and more.
Kurzel is behind the soundtrack for films such as Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant, The Pope's Exorcist, Nitram, Snowtown and the 2015 feature Macbeth.
On Tuesday night he was awarded Feature Film Score of the Year for Monkey Man, directed by Dev Patel, at the Screen Music Awards in Melbourne.
Monkey Man is the directorial debut for Patel who also stars in the film, a tale of a young man's revenge on a corrupt elite responsible for his mother's murder.
It's Kurzel's third win in the category with previous gongs for Snowtown and Slow West.
The easygoing musician is not one to reflect too much on his career, but a performance of his Monkey Man score at the Royal Albert Hall in London, along with a recent screen commentary session at SXSW Sydney, have given him every opportunity.
"You've got your head immersed into these things, and then you move on to the next thing ... I tend not to look back, because I like to keep moving forward," Kurzel told AAP.
He has just finished making the soundtrack for the Amazon Prime series adaptation of Richard Flanagan's Narrow Road To The Deep North starring Jacob Elordi and directed by his brother Justin Kurzel.
The project took about four months, with the composer involved much earlier than usual with any other director: working with his brother, he can throw around ideas and hand over unfinished music for rough edits.
Given the recollections of war and an intense affair in Flanagan's Booker prize-winning novel, Kurzel tried to create music that sounded distant yet eerily recognisable.
"It feels like a story shrouded in memory, so my whole idea was to create something that felt like it was being presented through a veil," he said.
Before focusing on composing, Kurzel was best known as the frontman of duo The Mess Hall, and while work with the band is on hold for now, he hopes they will play more often in 2025.
WINNERS AT THE 2024 SCREEN MUSIC AWARDS
* Feature Film Score of the Year: Monkey Man - Jed Kurzel
* Emerging Composer of the Year - Alex Olijnyk
* Best Music for Children's Programming: Bluey: The Sign - Joff Bush, Jazz D'Arcy, Daniel O'Brien, Joe Twist
* Best Music for a Documentary: War Tails - Piotr Nowotnik
* Best Music for a Short Film: Blame the Rabbit - Michael Darren
* Best Music for a Television Comedy: While the Men Are Away: Furrowing the Fuhrer's Brow! - Michael Yezerski
* Best Music for a Television Drama: High Country: Season 1 - Cezary Skubiszewski and Jan Skubiszewski
