“Noah” summons gentle waves of sound that rise and fall but never go anywhere in particular, while “Kruger”’s glassy, undisturbed surface suggests the Conglomerate patriarch’s supreme confidence, one belied by a yawning chasm of dissonance that opens, however briefly, as the track nears its conclusion. The track is one of form struggling to emerge from the void, fitting for a protagonist reluctantly drawn into a struggle for liberation. “Faith” opens with an ambient throb from which cold sustained notes give rise to anxious swells of sound. The rest of Catalyst is largely devoted to character themes, such as “Plastic,” “Dogen,” and “Aurore,” which hew to a conventional runtime of two or three minutes. Half of the score’s 32 tracks are similarly structured, including the scene-setting “Flytrap” and “Vive Le Resistance.” A mood of imminent danger, but one that lasts barely a minute before the track detours again, this time into meditative trance. Then beats emerge, providing a trip hop-like structure that, by minute eight, abruptly veers into a churning staccato of angry guitar that recalls Fragile-era Nine Inch Nails.
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The latter begins in New Age optimism: amelodic tendrils of industrial sound straining toward the cosmos. Cuts like “The Shard,” “Savant,” and “Back in the Game” are miniature suites that convey a sense of narrative. This tension often manifests within the same track. Surveillance is total, liberty not so much.Ĭonsequently, Birgersson’s score provides moments of shimmering radiance – the clean, clear tones of lives made easy and efficient by technological convenience – interrupted by knives of buzzing static and processed guitar that represent those who lose the Conglomerate’s favor or else refuse it. Citizens are known as Employs, the game’s antagonist lives in Elysium, and the masses live on the Grid – think China’s Great Firewall on steroids – where every communication is tracked and monitored. The Conglomerate, as the game’s oligarchy is known, wields power so great that it can afford to eschew euphemism. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is set in a near future of inverted totalitarianism, a term coined by political theorist Sheldon Wolin to describe a government of corporations, by corporations, for corporations. As Faith Connors, a skilled courier and black marketeer, that is exactly what players will do in order to survive. These disparate halves are bridged by propulsive beats that insist – don’t stop, go straight, move forward. Birgersson conjures narcotic waves of gently lapping sound, the themes of a soma-fed citizenry, and then troubles those waters to suggest the fear of stepping out of line.
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The result is an astonishing five hours of music that captures the anxiety of life in the city of Glass, an autocratic society of impossible cleanliness, like an Apple Store writ large. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, his 16th album, was recorded over two years at DICE’s Stockholm headquarters. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst Original SoundtrackĪs Solar Fields, Swedish composer Magnus Birgersson returns to the franchise that introduced millions of players to his characteristic blend of ambient, downtempo, and trance textures.