Dystopia is a collection of tense, unnerving and sinister cues, that fuse dystopic live strings and brass, mangled solo instruments, and abrasive sound design, to deliver profoundly dark, moody and powerful trailer-scores (see teaser video below).
Rather than rely purely on sound-design, we wanted the album to be built primarily around menacing tonal ideas – shuddering brass and string bends, grating clusters, dissonant spiccatos, mutilated solo violin recorded, processed and resampled. We worked with hand-picked, custom ‘dark brass’ and ‘dark string’ ensembles from the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, and recorded a host of brooding, unnerving parts, featuring dissonant, jarring playing styles and articulations not achievable with samples.
The result is a set of tracks which stalk ominously around the edges of horror, into dark action and drama, adult fairy-tales and tense, sinister thriller territory, showcasing a distinct blend of minimalist orchestral arrangements and signature sounds, hauntingly blended with grating sound-design.
This ambitiously austere album features 9 of our favorite composers, some of Europe’s best orchestral players, and a suitably unnerving, custom cover by our favorite ‘dark artist’ Jarek Kubicki.
ARRIVING FOR INDUSTRY ONLY, 24th JAN. 2018
Photos From the Orchestral Recording Sessions: November 2017
