Having been a fan of Peter Strickland’s films since I saw The Berberian Sound Studio at the cinema in 2012 it was very clear that, as well as being a director with a unique vision, he was someone who truly understood the power of sound in a film; not just how emotive a well-placed piece of music could be, but how the sound of everything from a breath, footsteps, the movement of clothing or the ambient silence of a room could evoke a response from the viewer; I’m thinking particularly of the intimate, closely recorded sounds in The Duke of Burgundy which also has a haunting soundtrack courtesy of Cat’s Eyes whereas In Fabric has an Italian horror-inspired score by Cavern of Anti-Matter who also contribute to this soundtrack.
Flux Gourmet could be a companion piece to The Berberian Sound Studio as it features the creation of sound at its core (The Berberian Sound Studio has foley artist Toby Jones travelling to a film studio in Italy to work on what turns out to be a Giallo film and the brilliance is that you never see the horror film only watch Jones’ character creating the torture effects). It centres around a world which reveres sonic caterers and has three performance artists Billy (Asa Butterfield), Lamina (Ariane Labed) and Elle (Fatma Mohamed) who start a residency for Jan Stevens (Gwendoline Christie), Director of the ‘Sonic Catering Institute’. The performances undertaken by the band at the institute are visceral and intense with sound created using kitchen equipment such as a blender alongside chopping, frying, and boiling food; all mic’d up and treated with effects and mixers (NB: The Sonic Catering Band is the name of Strickland’s real life on/off band, formed in 1996).
The OST reflects a mix of diegetic and non-diegetic sound with many of the pieces having a glorious dissonance when heard without the visuals, and below I have tried to give a cross section of what it has to offer. There are sublime pastoral tracks such as ‘Earlier Gardens’ by Heather Trost and Jeremy Barnes’ ‘The Funeral Table’:
…more challenging pieces such as the audio carnage of ‘Death Borscht’ by The Sonic Catering Band:
…and the digestive swamp of ‘Insufflation’ by Caverns of Anti-Matter and the spoken word fever dream of ‘Monday Service’ by Dan Hayhurst.
Peter Strickland’s “unique wavelength” (a description from Rotten Tomatoes) is often referred to as horror, but rather than rely on jump scares and excessive viscera, his films create an underlying situational queasiness (i.e. the unseen horror of The Berberian Sound Studio, the quiet tension between Evelyn and Cynthia in The Duke of Burgundy or the haunted dress of In Fabric); a sense that all is not right in the worlds he creates. There is an askew sense of nostalgia in the staging of his films and everything is placed with such purpose that the whole becomes inextricably fantastical when set against the acting and soundtrack.
If you are intrigued and tantalised by the tracks included here (and the trailer below) then I hope you will seek out Peter Strickland’s films. The care and attention lavished on their look and feel is equally matched by the sonic worlds that are so pivotal to his work. ‘Flux’ describes any effect that appears to pass through a surface or substance, and both the film and soundtrack to Flux Gourmet envelop and inhabit the senses.
The Flux Gourmet OST is released through Ba Da Bings! Records on black and coloured vinyl, cassette, and download.
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Review by Paul F Cook
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