Thin Films: "Ticking Hour (No Vocal)"

What is it with these artists who drop one bomb and then vanish forever into the crowd? It’s like they’re deputised by the gods for a night, discover the Higgs boson, and then bow out once the clock strikes twelve. British electro act Thin Films were one such passer-by in this fly-by-night phenomenon, setting the scene alight—or, rather, freezing it—back in early 2004 when they put out Eskimo, a self-styled album of “cinematic electronica” that imagined the Antarctic in supercomputers. Despite a follow-up EP and a handful of Myspace demos, that was pretty much it from brainchild Dan McRae; since, he’s been the subject of rumours that he’s ditching music altogether to work as a cabinet maker in the New Forest. Well, as this recently unearthed sample proves, all bombs have aftershocks. Originally written as the concluding cue for a film that never got past the screenplay phase (subject matter: mischievous pipe-bomb cult runs riot in the English backwaters), the track was hung out to dry once the project got shelved in the wake of London’s 7/7 attacks. It’s a bummer, then, that the IMAX panel never at least got the chance to consider “Ticking Hour” for promotion, because within seconds of its six-minute lifespan it’s obvious that this tune could’ve blackened the city.

With more than a whiff of Leftfield’s “Shallow Grave” to it, the piece opens with some sketchy nightvision synths shimmering like a cauldron of potassium chlorate before boiling into pure and rampant adventure. There’s a deep sense of peril as polite grime dices with keyboards, breathing all the gloom and euphoria of a cold night in Soho once the digital currents take hold. Yes, there’s definitely bad behaviour on the agenda, but unlike the covert antics taking places in crowded club cubicles, the temptations offered here run darker and more alien than your average urban knees-up. As cathode chirps and tattoo-gun bass breaks milk the quickening flow of adrenaline, McRae moulds undulating drums into the mix, creating a tempo that jumps like the visuals it was no doubt designed to accompany. Unfortunately, given the continuing worldwide plummet of credit and the consistent amber of the Terror Alert, it’s unlikely his work here will ever reach the audience it was written for (unless the Scientologists decide to raffle off Tinsel Town one budget at a time). Shame: I for one am a great believer that popcorn was invented to leap across cinemas in surprise rather than be munched on by the catatonic. Extra marks for that sassy Prodigy sample at the end.