For a band often singled out for their ‘dark, synthetic beats’ it’s curious to find the Octane soundtrack a fairly ‘organic’ sounding affair by today’s laptop heavy standards, but ‘dark’ it certainly is, sinister, in fact. So sinister that my three year old legged it out of the room at the first discordant strikes of ‘Through The Night’. Not that she’ll be able to hide for long. Not when I’ve supplanted the ‘Disney Princesses’ CD she’s currently got rotating on her nighttime stereo. But we all have to grow up sometime.
It’s not the first time the two brothers have lapsed onto the darkside, however, Orbital having already contributed to the soundtracks of Event Horizon and XXX. But this is their first movie score as such. So what is the film about? Well it’s a supernatural road movie by all accounts. Directed by Marcus Adams (Long Time Dead) and written by Stephen Volk, Octane sees overprotective single mother, Senga Wilson (Madeleine Stowe) driving her daughter, Nat (Mischa Barton), home from a visit to her father. Cue hitchhiker (and member of illicit vampire-cult) whose worldly experience is obviously of great interest to the already insubordinate teen, who sneaks off with aforesaid anti-hero. Chase ensues. That kind of thing.
Atmospheric and layered in clanking metallic samples and ambient, spooky voices, it’s pure soundtrack material; so don’t expect some great big lolloping tune to blast right out of it. But as soundtrack albums go it’s fairly successful, in that it carries and drives the tension without ever really getting in the way. And with it’s recurrent ‘Twilight Zone’ arpeggio going, it’s creepy enough without the visuals.
Tubular Bells it ain’t, but it does the job just swell.