Blarf

Film Scores For Films That Don't Exist

published in The Wire No.509, London, 2026

Excerpt

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Appropriate for its cultural take-down, an orchestra is sardonically deployed throughout much of Film Scores For Films That Don’t Exist. Some tracks use an LA-based orchestra; the rest subcontract work from Eastern Europe. Andre’s partner-in-crime for this project is game composer Prateek Rajagopal. The first Eastern European orchestra to be used for US-based film scores was Prague’s Film Symphony Orchestra, who performed the arrangements for Angelo Badalamenti’s score to David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986). Not dissimilar to how Brian DePalma commissioned Pino Donaggio to provide a type of Euro-aural giallo-grandeur for Carrie (1976), Dressed To Kill (1980) and Blow Out (1981), Lynch and Badalamenti were attracted not only to the FISYO’s academic rigour, but also the studiophonics of Czechoslovakia’s state-run recording studios.

By the time Dimmu Borgir use the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra on the Dolby 5.1 mixed Death Cult Armageddon (2003), this type of aesthetic manoeuvre had lost its distinctive flavour. In tracks like Blarf’s “What’s For Dinner”, Rajagopal can skilfully replicate those tropes to imply a commandeering of an orchestra waging war with djent warriors, but it pales when compared to Ramin Jawardi’s metal busting symphonic score for Iron Man (2008). In fact, just as film music often triggers one’s aural memories of widely dispersed musical precursors, Film Scores For Films That Don’t Exist recalls heaps of scores for films that do indeed exist.

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Text © Philip Brophy. Image © Stones Throw Records.