Apparat To Score ‘1984’ Adaptation

The relationship between electronic music and the performance arts has long been a close one. From Underworld’s long running collaboration with director Danny Boyle, to The Knife’s 2010 Darwin-themed opera, to Jeff Mill’s rescoring of Fritz Langz’s silent movie Metropolis, it’s easy to see why the expansive ambience of electronic production fit so well with visual accompaniments. Yet when Sascha Ring (aka Apparat) received a request from Germany’s renowned theatre director Sebastien Hartmann to score his new experimental adaptation of an obscure Tolystoy text, you can see why he might not have realised what he was getting himself into when crafting Krieg Und Frieden.

The result however was stunning. Brave without being over-experimental or difficult, and with enough of Apparat’s somewhat signature sound to not count as a red herring in his discography, Krieg Und Frieden is a beautiful deviation in the ever-expanding and ever-indefinable Apparat project.

Now the latest news to be coming from Sascha is that he has been tasked with providing the score for forthcoming movie Equals from director Drake Doremus. An updated version of the 1956 film 1984 which was based on George Orwell’s classic novel about rebellion in a totalitarian society; the new film is set to star Twilight and On The Road actress Kristen Stewart and British actor Nicholas Hoult.

Yeah, not the most confidence inspiring castings. Is it wrong that we’re far more excited about Apparat’s soundtrack than we are the actual movie? The long answer: no.