The French duo Daft Punk – Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo – have been playing together and recording for over a decade, but the Joseph Kosinski-directed “Tron: Legacy” is their first film score. The movie is the long-awaited follow-up to “Tron,” released in 1982. It goes without saying that the cinematic technology has advanced by leaps and bounds.
The score, arranged and orchestrated by Joseph Trapanese, fuses electronic minimalism with a grand, sweeping sound. Although electric keyboards predominate, there’s a full orchestra – recorded in London – that gives the disc its sonority. If there’s an overall feel to the music, it might be one of suspense, and flight. The story is set within a digital, cyber universe, and we all know how dangerous that can be.
On a good sound system, much of this record has an exuberant and even hypnotic quality. While the music is not necessarily challenging, and in fact is pretty accessible, it does generate the aural equivalent of blips of light, and adheres to a structured formalism that could be said to resemble channels and packets of fast-moving information. One of the standout tracks, however, apart from the overture, is called “Adagio For Tron,” and it’s reminiscent of 18th century Beethoven. You can taste the cello, or in this case the celli. A couple of other pieces hint at something you’ll dance to in a nightclub – relentless and pulsating. After all, we’re in the “grid,” not an African savannah.
The packaging for “Tron: Legacy” is sleek and seductive, and the disc contains extra content – film trailers, a photo gallery, and a music video. For those wanting to amp up their experience, Hollywood’s El Capitan Theatre features a laser light show before each screening, and has a full-scale “Tron: Legacy” light cycle in the lobby.
(When no one’s looking let’s take it out on Hollywood Boulevard for a test run.) ER
