Just a little under a year ago I had chosen a particular favorite song as the latest “Song of the Day”. This song was Clint Mansell’s “Together We Will Live Forever” which was part of his exceptional film score for Darren Aronofsky’s 2006 scifi love story, The Fountain. I’ve decided to finally bookend that choice by choosing what has to be the best song in that film’s soundtrack and one of the best piece of film score ever composed: Mansell’s “Death Is the Road to Awe”.

While I’ve given Mansell with the final credit for the creation of this epic song (not just in tone and execution but in length), he had help from frequent collaborator Kronos Quartet and Scottish post-rock band Mogwai. “Death Is the Road to Awe” takes the entirety of Mansell’s film scoring for The Fountain and distills them into a mixture of classical, post-rock and ambient dissonance which seems to all work so well together despite their very differing musical styles.

The Fountain was (still is) a film which brings out either love and admiration for it or utter hate for what some think was a pretentious, jumbled mess. Whether one loved or hated the film (rarely is there one who falls in the middle in their reaction to this film) the reaction most have had for the soundtrack has been mostly positive. I, for one, truly believe it to be one of the greatest film scores ever composed for any film. This song is the ultimate culmination of Mansell’s work for this film and just shows that classical, rock and electronic could co-exist side-by-side to create something truly unique and one-of-a-kind.