One of this year’s surprising successes has been S-Town, a multi-part podcast investigating the suicide of a small-town Alabama man, one whose legacy is stranger than fiction, and one which examines the impact of suicide on the living. It plays in part like a grandiose, 21st-century radio play, and it certainly shows the creative potential for the medium. What makes S-Town so effective, however, is the use of compelling, gentle, and tender incidental music, composed by Daniel Hart (The Polyphonic Spree, St. Vincent). Often tender, gentle, and respectful, it serves its purpose quite well: propelling and engaging the listener into the story. He envokes small-town Southern life in a manner that is respectful, avoiding the hokey clichés that could easily be had, resulting in some of the prettiest music related to death that you’ll hear all year. Music From S-Town contains nearly two dozen pieces of incidental music, and all are lovely, but we’re big fans of “Madeline and Pipsqueak.”
The Recoup 
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