A Winged Victory For The Sullen, the duo of Dustin O’Halloran and Stars of the Lid’s Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie, release their third full-length on Erased Tapes. Following 2014’s score for the dance piece Atomos and the release of Wiltzie’s music for the film Salero, Iris marks their first film soundtrack effort as a duo, with the digital bonus track edition including two solo pieces by Wiltzie, as well as tracks by Belgian artist Petite Noir, French trio dOP, DJ Pone and The Shoes.
Set to the eponymous French thriller drama which tells the story of a businessman’s young wife disappearing in Paris, the commission prompted them to develop a new compositional method. Using the film’s images as triggers for experiences, the initial sketches were conceived on a modular synth in Berlin, while the final sessions were recorded with a 40-piece string orchestra in Budapest. Inevitably cinematic, Iris contours its musical narratives more clearly than their two previous albums. A harp melody emerges against the backdrop of their characteristic string drones on ‘Prologue Iris’, meanwhile, the minimalist violins of ‘Gare du Nord, Pt. 1’ evolve into a foreboding electric guitar pattern. In similar fashion, ‘Le retour en forêt’ subtle flute-like ambience crescendos into a dense synth sequence, urged by its pulsating beat. Such powerful dynamics mirror the tension-filled atmosphere of the film thus proving the success of their new approach, treating the music as something that happens, rather than a quality.
