I have not seen the Netflix movie Little Brother, nor do I plan to any time soon. This is a review of the original soundtrack as a piece of music by experimental electronic musician and film composer Dan Deacon. I am not judging how the music contributed to the film, but how it stands up as purely a piece of listening. Taken on its own, the album is cool, mysterious, and exotic.
The official film score is 17 short tracks long and lasts less than half an hour. The first cut, “Brothers”, has been released as a single. It features actor and upright bassist Eric André, who also stars in the film. André is a classically trained musician who graduated from the Berklee College of Music. The three-minute cut is funky and energetic. In addition to playing bass, Deacon looped and sampled André’s voice to add a human dimension to the synthetic aural landscape.
The other tracks vary in tone, length, and instrumentation. At one end is the classical trappings of “Marcus”, a two-and-a-half-minute, melancholic bass-and-piano-forward song where Deacon‘s single key plucking emotionally captures a reflective state. At the other extreme is the noise-heavy “Upping the Game” laced with low horn sounds and mini climaxes. The most interesting tracks are the most exciting ones, such as the beat-heavy “Escapes” and the layered “Porsche Scratch”. The latter seems to be two separate cuts put on top of each other to create dynamic tension.
The songs’ titles generally refer to the film rather than the music itself, with names such as “The Extended Pee-Pee Scene”, “Emergency Trach—Marcus Is a Hero”, and “Up the Stairs-Producers Phone”. The best way to appreciate the music is not to try to envision what is happening on screen in one’s head, but to let each cut play seamlessly into the next, with all the shifts and strangeness this creates. Indeed, one becomes the creator of one’s own personal cinema. Instead of projecting what might be happening, one internalizes the sounds to confirm to one’s own thoughts.
The best moments are the smooth transitions rather than the juxtapositions. For example, the quiet of the brass and strings on “Acceptance Speech” flows sweetly into the piano introduction of “Shamed Apology”. They form a charming introduction into the third sequential tune, the orchestral “Brothers for Life”. That song breaks into a gentle crescendo before the next tune that gets hard and loud again. That effect is jarring, which apparently serves a purpose to viewers but can disorient the listener.
Critiquing a movie soundtrack without connecting the music to the film might seem specious. Still, there is a long history of film music that survives and thrives independent of its original connections. The highest-selling movie soundtrack in history is The Bodyguard, and I assume that most readers know the Whitney Houston songs and have never seen the flick. There are a host of others from the smooth and mellow Titanic to the excited electronics of Blade Runner that stand on their own and have legions of fans.
The concise length of the soundtrack to Little Brother offers just a taste of the eclectic composer. Apparently, the movie itself features contributions by a host of others, including Bad Bunny, Hoobastank, and Billie Holiday. Having them play here would be nice, but it would take away from Dan Deacon‘s creative purpose. This is purposefully short and sweet.