Brocker Way - Wild Wild Country (Original Score) (Western Vinyl)

Isolated from the Netflix documentary, Brocker Way’s score suggests different musical paths and evokes new narratives

Since the documentary itself remains unwatched by me, I’ll have to rely on the music alone to conjure imagery and narrative ideas. Of course listening to a score cut off from what’s on screen is the sort of isolating effect that is full of possibility.

Brocker Way follows in the footsteps of the mighty Max Richter, bringing modern classical staging to television soundtrack work. Where Richter’s masterful symphonies in vast miniature for The Leftovers heightened emotional states on the edge, Way reflects characters’ journeys in relationship with the surrounding landscapes. Individuals battling against themselves, moral struggles out on the frontier. It’s Deadwood as scored by Shane Carruth. Or, as on “High Desert”, a mix of Western tropes and Chinatown menace. Horns blow, guitars strum; the landscape haunts. There’s certainly mood and menace in these hills.

Way makes proceedings harsher by pushing into more brutal electronic sounds. The night stalking feeling of “Be Grateful for This Beautiful House” (reads like the title of a David Lynch painting) could be straight out of a techno surveillance thriller. Which juxtaposes nicely with “Church and State”, a piano piece that has something of “The Letter” by Harry Gregson-Williams and David Buckley (from their score to The Town) about it.

If I’ve gone down multiple roads and strayed from the intended path then it was encouraged by Brocker Way’s open arrangements. Perhaps a fancy way of saying I haven’t watched the documentary yet, but that didn’t do my imagination any harm.

brockerway.bandcamp.com