Before there were sample libraries and DAWs, a handful of films figured out something that most composers still haven’t: space, technology, and the unknown don’t sound like an orchestra. They sound like something that shouldn’t exist yet.
Five films that shaped what retro-futuristic film scoring means and why they still matter.
Forbidden Planet (1956)
Most people date electronic film music to the 1970s. They’re wrong by about twenty years.
Louis and Bebe Barron built their own electronic circuits for this film, recorded them while they were breaking down, and used the sound of dying electronics as the alien soundscape. No synths, no samples. Just self-destructing hardware captured on tape. MGM refused to credit it as music. The official credit reads “electronic tonalities.”
It’s the first fully electronic film score ever made. And it still sounds like nothing else.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
This is THE example of retro-futuristic film scoring that set the tone without a single synthesizer or electronic instrument.
The contrast between the Blue Danube waltz during a spacecraft docking sequence and the hypnotic choir music of Ligeti at the monolith is unmatched. Sentimental and completely alien at the same time, within the same film. To this day the strongest combination of image, orchestra and creative sound design in sci-fi.
And then the sound design itself. The sizzling sounds in the space scenes, the mechanical hum of the shuttle, HAL’s voice slowing down as he gets disconnected. No synthesizers, no samplers. Everything through musique concrète, recorded sounds manipulated on tape. HAL’s voice was an actor whose recording was electronically modulated into something that sounds human but just not quite.
Only 40 minutes of the 149 minute film contain dialogue. The rest is this.
Eraserhead (1977)
David Lynch spent five years making this film. The sound design took just as long.
There is no real score. What you hear is industrial machinery, distant organ, hum, distortion, and something that sounds like a broken radiator recorded in a church. Alan Splet spent years designing every sound in the film. Lynch has said that “sound is at least 50% of the picture”.
If you want to understand what it means to score a film without music, start here.
Solaris (1972)
Eduard Artemiev scored this film using the ANS synthesizer, a Soviet instrument that generated sound through photo-optical technology. Nobody else in the world had one. The result is a score that sounds like it was recorded on another planet, because in a way it was. The sound quality for the time is outstanding.
Tarkovsky used almost no music for the first two hours. When it finally arrives, it lands completely differently than if you’d been hearing music throughout. The silence is part of the composition.
Artemiev remains one of the most underrated composers in film history. Most people outside Russia have never heard of him.
Blade Runner (1982)
Vangelis improvised most of this score live while watching the film. No detailed spotting sessions. Just him alone with his synthesizers and a screen.
The result is a score that breathes with the film instead of underlining it. It doesn’t tell you how to feel. It creates the world and lets you live in it. The combination of analog synthesizers, ethnic instruments, and orchestral elements invented a language that film composers are still borrowing from today.
If there’s a single film that defines what retro-futuristic scoring sounds like, this is it.
These five films didn’t follow the rules of film scoring because most of those rules didn’t exist yet. They invented their own language instead. That’s still the most interesting thing a film composer can do.
Soundaholik creates retro-futuristic cinematic underscore for film and television. Catalog and licensing at soundaholik.com
