Dark Touch
Released by Tricatel, 2013
18 Tracks with a Total Running Time of 43 min.
Original Music by Christophe Chassol
It didn’t take but a few minutes into the movie for this score to get my attention. Right from the very beginning, we hear this haunting piano tune, which will always get my attention. But it continues on, drawing the listener in even more. The sound of the piano almost has a slight distortion, or like weird vibration to the notes, which gives it even more of an eerie sound to it. And right at that moment, I knew I had to look for this score after the film was done. Which is exactly what I did, and why we are here now!
This piano theme, or just the piano in general continues through the rest of the score. When you get to track 3, Housekilling, there’s a few notes from the piano before the use of strings comes into play, slowly in the beginning, accompanying the piano, before turning to more tension building with long, almost muffled screams, as they get louder and louder, fading away before coming back, with a strange, distorted sound in the distance. Very powerful track.
In Track 5, Pictures of Mary, we get this piercing distorted sounding strings, then moving back into more of a somber piano tune before the strings come back. Then that moves into a pulsing, electronic… almost thumping sound. Almost like the screeching strings are maybe supposed to represent a migraine?
While this score does have those beautiful piano melodies, it is the combination of that and the electronic strings (I’m guessing on what exactly was used here) that make it work so well. This is not a happy film, so Christophe Chassol has done an excellent job enhancing those feelings from the movie into sounds. This is one that I’ll be going back to quite a bit. Great mood music.
