Ben Frost: Dark (Cycle 1) (Original Music from the Netflix Series)
Lakeshore Records / Invada Records

Photek: Mosul (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Lakeshore Records

Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow: Luce (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Lakeshore Records / Invada Records

All of these recent soundtracks are noteworthy for the musical artists involved: Photek (aka Rupert Parkes) for Mosul, Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow for Luce, and Ben Frost for Dark (Cycle 1). Yet while all three releases have much to recommend them, in two cases the results don't wholly satisfy, though for different reasons.

Selecting Photek as the soundtrack composer for Mosul was inspired, those responsible clearly recognizing how much Parkes, armed with decades of experience crafting deeply atmospheric work, could bring to Daniel Gabriel's directorial debut. The feature-length documentary, which centers on the battle to reclaim the Iraqi city of Mosul from the grip of the Islamic State (ISIS) during 2016-17, is presented from the perspective of an Iraqi journalist embedded with Iraqi forces and granted direct access to events as they unfold.

The soundtrack, all of it original material by Parkes, comprises twenty short tracks, some of which include voices (at the start of “Mobilizing,” for example, a man says, “It's business as usual in Baghdad / But 400 kilometres north / A great storm is brewing ...”) and atmosphere from the film (sounds of gunfire in “Heading to the Front Lines”) to enhance the listening experience and deepen the connection between the soundtrack and film. Flutes, strings, organ, wordless vocals, and Middle Eastern instrument sounds appear alongside ambient textures to bolster the musicality of the soundtrack, which does effectively evoke the character of the film in audio form. When militant percussive pounding drives “Heading to Work” and an insistent techno-like pulse underpins the dark atmospherics of “Proceed,” it is possible to hear a faint trace of Photek in the material.

Yet while Parkes contends “fans of early Photek material will hear some of that original mood and texture coming through in this score,” in truth there isn't a whole lot about the material that's Photek-like; in fact, deprived of the name of the music's creator, I doubt few would make the connection. Don't get me wrong: teeming with portent, the score definitely evokes the locale plus the danger and turbulence of the events associated with the story-line; furthermore, it would have been inappropriate for him to fashion the soundtrack as some modern-day update of Modus Operandi, Form & Function, or “Ni-Ten-Ichi-Ryu.” Still, although from a marketing standpoint the decision to credit the score to Photek rather than Parkes is understandable, it's a bit misleading when doing so brings with it certain expectations about the soundtrack's sound and style.

Expectations for the Luce soundtrack naturally run high, given the memorable scores Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow created for Alex Garland's Ex Machina and Annihilation. In both cases, their musical contributions did much to intensify the unsettling aura of the films and impressed as marvelous enhancements to the visuals. Directed by Julius Onah, Luce is a psychological thriller about a high-school student (and former child soldier) whose parents adopted him from a war-torn country a decade earlier. The story takes a dramatic turn when Luce's teacher becomes aware of his views on political violence. Ambiguity and the limits of perceptions are central aspects of the film, and for Onah it was critical that the sonic dimension act as an atmospheric correlate to that.

Like Mosul, Luce features short pieces, in this case fourteen for the soundtrack proper and supplemental versions of “Luce's Theme” and “You Can't Run From Blood” tagged on at the end. Giving unity to the soundtrack is “Luce's Theme,” which opens the recording and is reprised midway through and again near the end. Certainly the soundtrack starts promisingly, the elegiac, classically tinged opener performed on church organ exclusively and the subsequent “Goodnight Amy” hewing to the dramatic tone but broadening out the musical terrain with strings. Salisbury and Barrow purposefully chose to have the organ predominate in the soundtrack due to its ability to build tension and amplify the story's general sense of unease. The fourth track introduces a major shift in sound design, “Skyhooker” a disturbing merging of dark ambient electronic textures and throbbing rhythms. The repetition of two brief voice samples (monosyllabic yelps more than anything) strengthens the cryptic mood as percussive accents batter the bass pulse and low-pitched synthesizers swarm.

Unfortunately, that contrast between the two poles—stark organ music on the one hand and electronic throb on the other—isn't exploited thereafter, the producers opting instead to accentuate subdued organ-based pieces. Even if that was their intent (Salisbury contends, “When a film purposefully asks difficult questions, and doesn't attempt to provide easy answers, you are obliged as composers, to leave the musical ‘sledgehammer' alone”), the soundtrack as a standalone suffers for its modicum of dynamic contrast. Yes, the organ settings are credible, but when the entirety of the presentation's given over to them except for two appearances of the most arresting piece, “Skyhooker” (the second time during the end credits in a slightly more elaborate, remix-styled version), the listener leaves the soundtrack wishing a better balance had been struck.

No such reservations attend the listening of Dark (Cycle 1), which presents music by Australian composer Ben Frost from the first season of the surreal German series by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese. Frost's ominous material is integral to the impact of the Netflix production, which addles the mind with a narrative that has characters from the German fictional town Winden enter a cave that enables them to re-emerge into different time periods. Frost's background in minimalist, instrumental, and experimental music served him well in meeting this soundtrack challenge; previous experience composing for film and theatre projects obviously didn't hurt either.

The soundtrack's macabre character doesn't take long to assert itself when a heaving convulsion—a sharp, industrial sound that'll be familiar to the series' devotees—enters sixteen seconds into the opening “Alles Ist Miteinander Verbunden” (“Everything is Connected”); an equally central motif, swooping strings, enters soon after to establish the connection to the program even more directly; said motifs, of course, punctuate the action throughout the series. Choir voices and merciless percussive strikes imbue “Die Ho¨lle Ist Leer, Alle Teufel Sind Hier” (“Hell is Empty, All Devils are Here”) with a gothic quality, while swollen, low-pitched synthesizer tones suggest the diseased undercurrents within the Winden community. A gentle moment does sometimes arise (see “Apokalypse,” with its calming piano chords), but for the most part Dark (Cycle 1) is as discomforting as the show itself.

Throughout, Frost's orchestrations do a brilliant job of matching the nightmarish tone of the show, with the wooziness of the strings, for example, an effective counterpart to the discombobulation the viewer experiences watching the series. Abetting the recording's effectiveness, most of its twelve tracks are in the two- to three-minute range, which allows for a more substantial musical statement to be made than a one-minute vignette. It's a shame the soundtrack doesn't include the haunting opening credits song, Apparat's “Goodbye,” when it, like Frost's material, is so much a part of the series' identity; presumably the powers-that-be wanted to keep the soundtrack an all-Frost affair. Regardless, fans of this release'll be happy to know a follow-up featuring music from the series' second season is also available.

September 2019