Synth Soundtracks
9 Episodes
Once the sound of the future, now awesomely retro, synth soundtracks add a splash of otherworldly atmosphere to some of the coolest movies ever made. Using state-of-the-art analog and digital technologies, pioneering musicians like Sun Ra (SPACE IS THE PLACE) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE) created immersive soundscapes that expanded cinematic storytelling and forever changed the art of movie soundtracking. Alternately eerie, icy, pulse-pounding, and thrillingly emotional, these scores tunnel into your eardrums at ecstatic frequencies hitherto unexplored.
Coprogrammed by Synth History/Danz CM
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Solaris
Episode 1
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky • 1972 • Soviet Union
Starring Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Yuri YarvetGround control has been receiving mysterious transmissions from the three remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is dispatched to i...
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1:21:41Episode 2
Space Is the Place
Episode 2
Directed by John Coney • 1974 • United States
Starring Sun Ra, Barbara Deloney, Raymond JohnsonAvant-jazz mystic Sun Ra brought his pioneering Afrofuturist vision to the screen with this film version of his concept album. It’s a wild, kaleidoscopic whirl of science fiction, sharp social comment...
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2:03:25Episode 3
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
Episode 3
Directed by Nagisa Oshima • 1983 • Japan
Starring David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tom ContiIn this captivating, skewed World War II drama from Nagisa Oshima, David Bowie regally embodies Celliers, a British officer interned by the Japanese as a POW. Rock star Ryuichi Sakamoto (who also composed ...
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Scanners
Episode 4
Directed by David Cronenberg • 1981 • Canada
Starring Stephen Lack, Jennifer O’Neill, Michael IronsideWith SCANNERS, David Cronenberg plunges us into one of his most terrifying and thrilling sci-fi worlds. After a man with extraordinary—and frighteningly destructive—telepathic abilities is nabb...
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1:45:46Episode 5
The Last Wave
Episode 5
Directed by Peter Weir • 1977 • Australia
Starring Richard Chamberlain, Olivia Hamnett, GulpililRichard Chamberlain stars as Australian lawyer David Burton, who takes on the defense of a group of aborigines accused of killing one of their own. He suspects the victim has been killed for violatin...
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Stalker
Episode 6
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky • 1979 • Soviet Union
Starring Alisa Freindlikh, Aleksandr Kaidnovsky, Anatoly SolonitsynAndrei Tarkovsky’s final Soviet feature is a metaphysical journey through an enigmatic postapocalyptic landscape, and a rarefied cinematic experience like no other. A hired gui...
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1:25:24Episode 7
Shogun Assassin
Episode 7
Directed by Kenji Misumi and Robert Houston • 1980 • Japan, United States
Starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, Kayo Matsuo, Minoru OkiThe legendary midnight-movie sensation that firmly embedded samurai mythology within American pop-culture consciousness, this English-dubbed reedit of the first two fil...
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1:20:04Episode 8
For All Mankind
Episode 8
Directed by Al Reinert • 1989 • United States
In July 1969, the space race ended when Apollo 11 fulfilled President Kennedy’s challenge of “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” No one who witnessed the lunar landing will ever forget it. Al Reinert’s documentary FOR...
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1:17:21Episode 9
White Rock
Episode 9
Directed by Tony Maylam • 1977 • United Kingdom
British documentary film-maker and producer Tony Maylam invigorated the sports documentary genre with WHITE ROCK, an idiosyncratic and utterly engaging account of the XII Olympic Winter Games Innsbruck 1976. He did so by placing music front and cen...