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Soundtrack to the ballet Cult of Color refuses to sit obediently in any single genre, instead straddling several over the course of 55 minutes. Traces of jazz, rock and industrial music are discernible alongside soundtrack styles and a gothic, theatrical streak runs through this music too. The liner notes describe the ballet as a mythic, tribal world where colour is dreamt of, then discovered in a subterranean world. Reynolds' compositions are, appropriately enough, a mixture of starkly rendered monochrome and more subtly coloured music. A World Without Color begins in commanding style with brutally methodical percussion and braying saxophone. The music then continues without pause into the echoing, gentler sound world of Sesom's Dream, shaded with marimba and vibes. Betto's Lament could be mistaken for a Tom Waits instrumental, made up of twanging guitar, plangent strings, heartbeat percussion and kalimba. Elsewhere, The Darkness Babies is pleasingly strident, drums are beaten mercilessly and Paul Klemperer's saxophone rages and snorts into darkness. The Golden Arm Trio belies its name by comprising 17 musicians, a little under half of which are string players. Their presence, although integral, mostly comes second place to the prominent rhythm section. When heard on their own, halfway through Sesom And His Disciples, they emphasise an anxious, forbidding strain to the proceedings.

Austin-based composer-bandleader-improviser Graham Reynolds creates, performs, and records music for film, theater, dance, rock clubs, and concert halls, with collaborators ranging from Richard Linklater and Jack Black to DJ Spooky and Jeffrey Zeigler. Graham recently signed with London-based label Fire Records and released his score for Hitchcock’s silent classic, The Lodger, in October 2020.

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