Flux Gourmet - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

In Peter Strickland’s Flux Gourmet, a dysfunctional group of performance artists undertake a month-long residency at an institute devoted to culinary disciplines. Food is interrogated for its sonic potential as the group mic-up, amplify, distort and transform what they cook in front of an audience. The noise that the characters in the film itself make is driven by food blenders, overflowing cauldrons of gurgling soup and sizzling frying pans (courtesy of The Sonic Catering Band), yet the music that soundtracks the culinary capers is engorged with aching melodies and wordless, airy vocals. Contributors include Cavern of Anti-Matter, Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost of A Hawk and a Hacksaw and Trost’s band, Roj (formerly of Broadcast), and Nurse With Wound. Flux Gourmet is presented in a lush 2xLP package with an ornate, colourful design and Strickland’s detailed liner notes.

Image, colour, light and sound are integrated and heightened to delirious levels of hyperreality, much like Strickland’s past works, Berberian Sound Studio and In Fabric. Flux Gourmet very much alludes to his past as a member of The Sonic Catering Band, which he founded back in 1996. The band split on several occasions and got back together to create new pieces for the soundtrack, concocting strange sonic morsels and treating recipes as if they were scores. The lines between what is on the screen and what is on the soundtrack are blurred, with the band (mostly) using the exact same equipment (which they loaned to the production) and recipes as in the film. However, for all the conceptual rigour on display, the music on the Flux Gourmet is ultimately in pursuit of catharsis, as one character concedes. The power of music and/or noise to purge and cleanse its makers (and hopefully, listeners) of their ills and woes.

Tracklist: 

Side A:

A1. Heather Trost - Early Gardens 

A2. Roj - Trip to the Shops

A3. The Sonic Catering Band - Death Borscht

A4. The Sonic Catering Band - The Third Gastric Surge of the Night 

A4. Jeremy Barnes - The Funeral Table 

Side B:

B1. The Sonic Catering Band - Greed 

B2. The Sonic Catering Band - HLA-DQ8

B3. Heather Trost -  Early Gardens (earlier) 

B4. Roj - Trip to the Shops 

B5. Nurse with Wound - Hindu Monastery Breakfast 

B6. Tim Harrison - Ohmlette’s Law 

Side C:

C1. The Sonic Catering Band - Vegetable Trash 

C2. The Sonic Catering Band - A Sedimental Journey 

C3. The Sonic Catering Band - Baron von Omelette

C4. The Sonic Catering Band - Dossier de Canteen

C5. Cavern of Anti- Matter - Insufflation Tube 

C6. Jeremy Barnes - The Funeral Table 

C7. The Sonic Catering Band - A Pain I Can’t Hold In 

Side D:

D1. Heather Trost - Early Gardens (earliest) 

D2.Dan Hayhurst -  Monday Service 

D3. Marta Salogni - Cross-Contamination 

D4. Roj - Trip to the Shops (closing down) 

D5. Jeremy Barnes -  The Funeral Table (demonstration)