Alt-rock career From the band's inception in 1986 until their dissolution in 1996, Mansell was a member of
grebo/alt-rock band
Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI). The band was first introduced to computer-based music in 1988 while working with producer
Flood on their album
This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This!. Their sound evolved to include
sampling and
electronic music, bringing influences from
hip hop,
industrial music and other
dance genres into their music. After the band was dropped by
RCA, PWEI were signed in 1994 to
Nothing Records, a label owned by
Trent Reznor of
Nine Inch Nails. It was there that Reznor
mentored Mansell and introduced him to
Pro Tools.
Film score career While still living in New York, Mansell was introduced to director
Darren Aronofsky by a mutual friend. Aronofsky was unaware of Mansell's previous work with Pop Will Eat Itself, however the two men bonded over their love of hip hop and their belief that "film music at the time was terrible." Aronofsky suggested that Mansell write the opening title piece for
Pi, Aronofsky's
feature film directorial debut. A re-orchestrated version of the song, titled "Requiem for a Tower", was arranged by composers Simone Benyacar, Dan Nielsen and
Veigar Margeirsson for the
trailer of
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The following year, his score for the Aronofsky film
The Fountain was awarded Best Original Film Score of the Year and the Public Choice Award at the
7th World Soundtrack Awards.
The Fountains score was also nominated for Best Score in a Motion Picture at the 2007
Golden Globe Awards. Mansell's score for Aronofsky's
Black Swan garnered him multiple nominations and awards. He was nominated for the
Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media as well as Best Original Soundtrack (for
Black Swan), and Soundtrack Composer of the Year (for
Black Swan,
Last Night and
Faster) at the
11th World Soundtrack Awards. The score was deemed ineligible for the
Academy Award for Best Original Score due to its use of
Tchaikovsky's original music from
Swan Lake. Nevertheless, Mansell's music from the film
Moon was used in the film's trailer and was also used in the 2012 trailer of the computer game
Aliens: Colonial Marines. Mansell provided the scores for the films
Stoker (also featuring music by
Philip Glass) and
Filth, which were both released in 2013. Mansell's film scores have been sampled by such musical artists as
Lil Jon,
A$AP Rocky,
Bastille and
Paul Oakenfold. Having no formal training in
musical notation, Mansell constructs his film scores using the method he employs for writing rock music — drums, bass, guitar and vocal lines — in addition to employing an
orchestrator. Some of his influences include
Philip Glass,
Trevor Jones,
David Holmes, and bands such as
Death in Vegas,
Mogwai and
Unkle.
Symphonic performances Mansell has performed some of his film compositions live with the
Sonus Quartet in the US, the UK and Australia. The
Kronos Quartet, who performed "Lux Aeterna" for the
Requiem for a Dream soundtrack, have also performed some of Mansell's work live.
Publishing deal In February 2019, Mansell signed a publishing deal with Decca Publishing, a division of
Decca Records. This deal brought his catalogue of more than 650 original pieces, including his Pop Will Eat Itself work, under a single umbrella for the first time. ==Awards and nominations==