One of the first cinematic portrayals of a bleak, far off dystopia, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis has long been the subject of fetishisation by electronic musicians; from Kraftwerk to Giorgio Moroder, fear of being replaced by a machine has haunted workers and musicians alike ever since the Industrial Revolution.
Commissioned by the London Science Museum as part of their Robots exhibition, Factory Floor’s brief was to create a musical narrative to accompany a screening of Lang’s masterpiece as it was showcased in, one of it’s longest versions (the original cinema version was heavily cut on release).
Played out over nearly two and a half hours, the duo concentrate heavily on the matching the film’s themes of paranoia and mob hysteria with a series of industrial drones that pulse hypnotically, before towards the final act they shift gears with Heart of Data’s minimalist techno and the AI loops of Flood.
Unquestionably a lesser experience for not being heard on the night while locked in the performance chamber, Soundtrack For A Film nevertheless is a worthy addition to the catalogue of nightmarish visions this piece of future history has been creating for more than 90 years.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 