Barry Black is dead. And Eric Bachmann killed him.
While playing in much-loved North Carolina college-rock quartet Archers of Loaf, singer/multi-instrumentalist Bachmann occasionally ventured from his band's jagged hooks and sharply veering verses to take refuge in the more subdued, cinematic sounds of his instrumental side project, Barry Black.

After the Archers broke up in 1998 ("It became work, so we knew it was time to quit," says Bachmann), the whiskey-soaked wakes and lo-fi laments of Bachmann's current band, Crooked Fingers, became his focus. And this week, Bachmann, who now resides in the Atlanta area, releases his first CD to bear his own name -- Short Careers: Original Score for the Film Ball of Wax.

But whatever became of Barry Black? The disappearance of that low-key project -- which released two terrific albums, in 1995 and 1997 -- has remained a Hoffa-like unsolved mystery. Until now.

"The whole reason I did those [Barry Black] records, to be perfectly honest, was to get scoring work," Bachmann says. "So then I got scoring work and realized if I continued to work under the name Barry Black, nobody would know who was scoring this movie and they wouldn't be able to offer me more work. So anything from now on I would put out as Barry Black will be as Eric Bachmann."

Short Careers is being released on Merge Records, co-owned by another North Carolina indie-rock star (Superchunk's Mac McCaughan) with a side project (Portastatic) that has dabbled in soundtrack work. Along with McCaughan and other indie-rock artists -- Yo La Tengo, the Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt -- Bachmann is stretching his compositional muscle through film scoring and reaping the benefits of the generation of filmmakers raised on '90s college rock who are coming of age now.

Short Careers fell into Bachmann's lap after Daniel Klaus, writer/director of the still unreleased film Ball of Wax, approached him at a show in Wilmington, N.C. After seeing a cut of the North Carolina-set film, about baseball becoming a blood sport, Bachmann quickly grabbed the opportunity.

"Dan, the director, was really good at giving me ideas of what he wanted," Bachmann says. "He reduced my options, but also was open to things that were completely unexpected. Essentially what he did was send me a VCR tape of the movie with other people's music on it -- like a Woody Allen score or Tortoise -- and it gave me an idea of what he wanted. There were even old Barry Black songs on the tape, so that helped me realize I could do this. He was also really into the Kronos Quartet score for Requiem for a Dream, and I can write for strings -- ballsy strings -- so I was happy. I had the tools and the musicians."

Before getting an English degree in Chapel Hill, Bachmann had been an alto saxophone performance major at Appalachian State. His exposure to composition classes, with their lessons in music theory and notation, helped expedite the process of scoring, if not the product. "It was all books written by 60-year-olds who hadn't been fucked in forever," Bachmann says of his formal music education. "They didn't teach much emotion. My standard was John Coltrane doing heroin and practicing 20 hours, but all I could manage was practicing 10, so I was sucking. I didn't have the patience to be a virtuoso."

Instead, Bachmann became a respected figure in the post-Pavement world of '90s indie rock. While his stint at Appalachian State taught him technical control, his time with the Archers of Loaf resulted in knowledge of the more volatile side of music, as well as insight into harnessing raw energy. In the back of his head, however, was always the desire to make music of widescreen scope.

"I've just wanted to score films since I was 13 years old," Bachmann says. "Being in a rock band is rewarding, but to me, it's not as rewarding as helping someone finish a movie. I had relatives who were really into Ennio Morricone. John Barry is cool. Badalamenti. I just grew up with the romantic idea put across by Morricone with Clint Eastwood."

Ironically, while Bachmann is finally releasing an album under his own name, the nature of film scoring has produced music that's probably his least personal yet -- and that suits Bachmann just fine.
"If you're a remotely honest human being, you're going to find tons of ways to hate yourself," Bachmann says. "I hate dealing with myself all the time, writing my own songs. I'm just brutal to myself. One thing Mac and I did discuss after he did his Portastatic score (Looking for Leonard) is that scoring is really liberating because your options are reduced. It's not as self-absorbed and self-important as writing a song. I've heard other people complain that they don't want to be told what to write, but I want to be able to have a good time doing what somebody else wants -- just being able to shrug off the questions of intent. I am enhancing something that already exists, trying to communicate what this movie is already communicating."

The shimmery chime of Short Careers strikes a balance between Bachmann's output as Barry Black and Crooked Fingers. No pieces delve quite as deep into the brooding beauty of Crooked Fingers, but the shadowy -- at-times scratchy -- sweep recalls the feverish, jazzy lope of Barry Black's calliope. Strings are impeccably performed courtesy of cellist Eunice Kang and violinist Andrej Curty (who along with cellist Viktor Uzur are what Bachmann calls Crooked Fingers' secret weapons).

Another influence that's become apparent from Barry Black to Crooked Fingers to Short Careers is the influence of Appalachia, where Bachmann grew up. "That's kind of my favorite kind of music. Doc Watson lives in North Carolina, and he's one of my favorite guitar players ever. His voice sounds like an old mountain. It sounds like there wasn't a time when they made it, it always existed. It popped out of the earth one day. I can't say why I like that so much, maybe because it's just always been around."

The pieces on Short Careers have a similar elemental quality. Sounds are twisted and detuned, but they're generally uncluttered, with no impulse to force multiple movements together. No unnecessary going for baroque. Bachmann says he is more than willing to scale back in order to fulfill the film's needs, not his ego's.

"I believe in what I'm doing," says Bachmann. "I'm not the type of person who doesn't care what people think. But it's friggin' pop music. It's not Stravinsky. I've been dealing with a lot of people lately who have a false sense of integrity."

With Short Careers out, Bachmann is now working on a new Crooked Fingers record, projected for a February 2003 release, that he says will feature more stomp, with live drums, some Latin flourishes and an attempt at Astral Weeks scope. He's also working on his second score, this one for a film titled The Kiss, starring Billy Zane and Terence Stamp. Written by novelist Gorman Bechard, another old Archers fan who became Bachmann's friend, The Kiss tells a story based on the famous Robert Doisneau photo, "Le Baiser de l`Hotel de Ville." To recall the feeling of Paris in the '50s, Bachmann will be scoring with the gypsy swing of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli in mind.

With so many projects increasing awareness of Bachmann's compositional versatility, he hopes to one day get the chance to compose for full orchestras and do improvisational soundtrack performances. For now, the semi-nomadic Bachmann is just happy to have the chance to keep things interesting.

"If you've been in a band for a lot of years, it becomes work," Bachmann says. "But I'm willing to work. I want to reach people. I'm not talking about marketing wise -- I'm talking about musically. There's no formula -- I prefer to rearrange the formula, change the arrangements, surprise the audience and myself. There's no direct aesthetic attached to it -- like wanting to score movies just about this or that -- I'd give anything a shot if I thought the people were going to be easy to deal with and the movie was going to be good. So things are always changing, and it's becoming very fun again."

It could be that, as indie-rockers like Bachmann and McCaughan get more musically sophisticated and stop wanting to rock so hard, they'll find a niche doing film work. But for his part, Bachmann doubts that.

"Mac, myself -- because people who liked our music are suddenly able to make their films, we're being asked to do scores," he says. "It's not a statement on our maturity or anything, I don't think. It's just something I personally have always wanted to do, and it's really fun at a primitive level to be in different situations. I enjoy pop records and will keep putting them out if that's what the muse is offering. But I also love scores, because you want to change what you're doing. Just to keep your brain from mush."