Jilk‘s Jon Worsley recalls seeing Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo II (1992) when he was “way too young;” the experience left an indelible, and perhaps slightly scarring impression. The film, groundbreaking for its time, includes graphic scenes of torture and body horror, centering around a man who is transformed into a cyborg, piece by lonely piece. Chu Ishikawa’s original industrial score is a perfect match for the period: percussive, bombastic and unrelenting. But time and perspective led Jilk in a slightly different direction. The new Tetsuo II is equally dramatic but slightly more subtle, filled with piano, guitar and sampled breaks. Worsley attempts to capture the film’s underlying sadness, the tragedy at its core, rather than the action itself. At 39 minutes, it’s approximately half the length of the original 68-minutes OST, so it’s impossible to synch, although one may link the titles to the scenes. More importantly, Tetsuo II is an ode to the experience of watching – and remembering – the film.
The opening moments of the new score serve as an homage, as dark 80s chords enter the frame, along with the first robotic rhythms. Ironically, or perhaps perfectly, drum ‘n’ bass also appeared on the scene in 1992, making the use of the form seem fitting. At the time, it too was considered groundbreaking, with a futuristic aura. The main difference between Jilk’s beats and Ishikawa’s are that Jilk’s are clean, polished, devoid of grit, more like an idealized fusion of man and machine than the oil-and-blood-splattered vision of Tsukamoto. But when the beats begin to slow, as they do in “Flesh-Tech,” and the piano is heard clearly, one can focus on the loss of humanity, the internal terror of a protagonist whose former life is slipping away. And when the entire mechanism seems about to break down, as it does near the end of this piece, one thinks not only of the machine, but of the mind. The strings of “Minori’s Hand” emphasize the growing pathos as for a short time the percussion disappears. At the end lies only piano, a perfect choice as it emphasizes a discipline for which human hands are essential. “Half Tank” revisits this contrast, although by this point in the narrative the machine is ever-present in sight as well as in sound.
The titles of bracket tracks “VHS Wears Thin” and “End of Tape” remind us that this is an album about watching a movie, which makes the new score a love letter to the experience of cinema. To remember how one felt while watching a film may cross the years more than the memories of the images or dialogue. Often one views a film one enjoyed decades earlier, only to ask, “Why did I like that?” But even so, one remembers the emotional impact, which may cause one to mourn the loss of the child who came before, just as the cyborg mourns the loss of flesh and the feeling of human connection. (Richard Allen)
a closer listen 