I've Seen Things

I've go some things coming up soon but not to worry, I will still be with you thanks to the science of scheduled posts. I've been giving the Blade Runner OST a god ol listen as of late again, specifically the 'Trilogy' re-release form '07 with a heap of bonus tunes on it. As one would expect it's gorgeous ambient for the most part, and still has that futuristic feel despite coming up on 35 years old by now, bonus enjoyment to be had if you got a cyberpunk sci-fi streak like moi too.

Suppose I should kick off with the quintessential Blade Runner tune, I've posted it before but it bears repeating. It ain't hard to see the influence of this tune on folks: it's been sampled in all sorts from Aesop Rock to Blu Mar Ten, featured on Röyksopp's Late Night Tales compilation and is plain to see the effect it's had on synth-inclined folk such as Oneohtrix Point Never too. It's a fantastic piece, I'd certainly like to see more film OSTs in this vein.



Gonna be focusing on the later discs for now though, I feel like enough's been said about the soundtrack over the years. There's some nice not quite ambient tucked away on these later discs, starting with the neo-noir of Dimitri's Bar, which shows off the world music part of the OST quite well with the duelling sax and eastern strings. I almost want to say with some small tweaks it wouldn't sound too out of place on Massive Attack's Protection.



Speaking of trip hop, there's a fair amount of downtempo stuff on here too. Vadavarot is surprisingly sedate, but even so the electronics on display are a joy to hear, all with some more displays of the worldly aspects of both the music and the Blade Runner universe with the distinctly Eastern European vocal accompaniment (I tried to find a source for what language it's in but there's nothing, so apologies if I'm way off!)



There's no language worries on this one when it comes to the title at least, having been a bit of a film buff in past I know it's Polish. This one's certainly the most soundtrack-esque of the bunch, I really dig the overall structure, and the voicemail quality of the spoken work is taking me back to the electroclash days when that was the in thing.



-Claude Van Foxbat