CD REVIEW - Pulse


Pulse
Music by Elia Cmiral
To be released in the U.S. on Lakeshore in September 2006
24 Tracks 38:07 mins

I'm working from an advance release, kindly supplied by Costa Communciations, of Elia Cmiral's score for Jim Sonzero's film Pulse, which is another horror inspired by a popular Japanese film, concerning computer hackers who open a portal to another world, allowing dark forces to cross over. The film is written by vteran genre director Wes Craven and this is his second collaboration with the composer, Cmiral having previously scored Craven's They in 2002.
The music's pretty much as one would expect, similar to much that is written for the genre these days, so don't expect melody because you won't find it here. Instead, it's full of mystery, suspense and explosive shock moments, very modern and dissonant, realised by a combination of electronics, orchestra and voices.
Cmiral actually used an ISDN connection from his Los Angeles home to conduct seventy minutes of score with a sixty-piece orchestra located in his native Czech republic. In addition, he used three programmers to handle the huge amount of sound design and no less than five orchestrators (that sound you hear is Bernard Herrmann turning in his grave!). The choral parts were handled by both programmed and live voices - including Cmiral's own. He describes the work as "intense," with the director making him "explore every possible or impossible musical and sonic corner."
If you are a fan of the horror genre and like your music challenging, you'll be glad to know that Lakeshore will be releasing an official album next month.