Drokk: Music Inspired by Mega-City One (Bunker Edition)

Geoff Barrow is a founding member of Portishead and producer / label owner of Invada Records. Ben Salisbury is a soundtrack composer with over 200 film and T.V. credits to his name, including David Attenborough's 'Life of Mammals', 'Life in the Undergrowth' and 'Life in Cold Blood'. Geoff and Ben met over 10 years ago when they both joined a Bristol football team for old men. After many disastrous games they decided they might be more productive collaborating on a music project together. Other commitments kept them apart until late 2010, when the pair met up with a screenwriter to discuss some possible work on a feature film project. Although their involvement with this particular movie did not continue, a joint writing relationship had begun...

When Geoff and Ben revisited and started expanding upon this early material they decided to continue writing what was essentially soundtrack music. Geoff, along with album designer and long term friend, Marc Bessant, were both avid '2000 A.D.' readers from a young age, and the sprawling metropolis and classic stories of Mega-City One seemed the ideal inspiration for this "soundtrack".

'Drokk' was written in a six month period between Geoff's Portishead world tour and Ben's composing jobs for the BBC. Although it is a soundtrack of sorts, the two instinctively felt the project should steer clear of the rich orchestration common to many contemporary film scores. Even for electronica the music is often purposefully stark and spare, with the majority of tracks created exclusively on the Oberhiem 2 Voice Synthesizer (a classic keyboard from 1975), and its onboard sequencer used to create rhythm and drums sounds. The only exceptions are a handful of tracks which combine the synth with digitally manipulated and time-stretched performances of acoustic instruments (such as piano, violin, mandolin, ukulele, voice and hammered dulcimer). There is also a brief cameo from Geoff's other band, Beak.

This numbered Bunker Edition of 'Drokk' comes with a coded download card, allowing access to on-line bonus material.