Serious Earth (download)

Recommended on Radio 3s Mixing It as “atmospheric soundscapes with strong melodies… very superior soundtrack music”, this album rarely allows a chink of light to relieve the tension. Serious Earth is the unusual fruit born from the collaboration between Chris Barter (The Corridor) and Andy Phillips (CODE)

Texture opens the account with Sci-fi overtones giving way to sinister piano overheard in the asylum. Gentle Intrusion follows, beautiful and yet strangely funereal. The Occupant fuses orchestral, synthetic, and ethnic instruments to create a filmic soundscape that wouldn’t be out of place as a Blade Runner soundtrack. Skin is an altogether harder, more industrial offering, conjuring up images of S&M dens and slave ships. There’s a tortured soul in there somewhere, I’m sure.

Darwin seems to be breaking their own rules, starting with an unusually pretty arpeggio. It does, however, “evolve” into something more in keeping with the macabre tone of the album so far. A twisted beauty. Borg as its name suggests, has sci-fi overtones. Industrial, synthetic, cold, and insistent, I think we’re back in Mistress Scarlet’s dungeon. The final track, “The Quickening” raises the tempo and the mood. It seems slightly at odds with the rest of the album but somehow makes sense in a “light at the end of the tunnel” kind of way. The beat bears similarities to Underworld’s Born Slippy but you can be sure that The Corridor won’t venture too close to commercial territory.