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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of The Matrix (Don Davis)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... on the 2008 limited album if you desire a most balanced
and palatable presentation of Don Davis' often difficult, postmodern
score, the 1999 and 2024 albums too short and the 2021 complete version
only for true franchise enthusiasts.
Avoid it... if you demand the greater role of thematic tonality that develops in the two sequel scores by Davis, both featuring a more interesting blend of challenging dissonance and quasi-religious drama.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Matrix: (Don Davis) Very rarely does a truly
visionary concept come out of Hollywood, especially in the science
fiction and fantasy genres that include thousands of entries over many
decades. The existential issues raised by Andy and Larry Wachowski in
1999's The Matrix proposed the idea that everything man knows in
terms of "reality" is a computer simulation controlled by machines in a
real world of the future, a world in which humans' bodies are harvested
for energy while their brains are fed the illusion of a world
contemporary to viewing audiences. Those who have escaped the machines
and their endless levels of competing programming hide deep under the
surface of the planet, plugging into the virtual world when necessary to
cause trouble and save people who didn't know they needed salvation. The
primary target for both humans and machines is the character of Neo
(Keanu Reeves), who is the Jesus Christ figure of this disjointed world
and the one who can both save humanity and bring balance to the machine
world. The film's March release revealed relatively low initial
expectations from Warner Brothers, though an explosive return at the box
office eventually opened the door for two successful sequels, both
released (awkwardly) in 2003. The production elements of The
Matrix are stunning, especially in the art direction and Wachowskis'
unique techniques of shooting and editing fight sequences, the latter
revolutionary at the time. The dimensions of time and space are
distorted in the film's pivotal moments, yielding a marvelous spectacle
of sight to coincide with the story's already unconventional
propositions. The Wachowskis realized immediately that the film would
require an unusual combination of music, especially when pertaining to
the score. While the trilogy adopted more of a romantic sense of fantasy
in its sequels, The Matrix presented an odd blend of horror and
coolness in between its frantic chase sequences. The real-world veterans
played by Carrie-Ann Moss and Laurence Fishburne exuded professional and
cool personas that necessitated an equally ass-kicking personality in
the music.
For the coolness of the soundtrack, the Wachowskis relied on hard rock songs that defined the film for many. This is especially evident as Neo adopts the same persona in the last flying sequence of the film. With those hip, mainstream elements of The Matrix addressed by Marilyn Manson and others, the Wachowskis turned to their collaborator for the quirky Bound, Don Davis, to provide the unusual sounds necessary for the darker concepts. The directors specifically requested music that was different, and whether you label it postmodern or avant-garde, Don Davis' result certainly succeeds. It was a project that Davis referred to as a dream assignment, for it allowed him, as he stated, to rely more heavily on the "postmodern works that are being done now on the concert stage." Davis has always enjoyed writing original concert pieces in his career, because it allows for a level of freedom and exploration that films don't often permit. He commented that The Matrix, despite being a good candidate for a different sound, would not have worked with a score heavily laden with synthesizers, and he justified this by claiming that electronic scores had become something of the norm by the late 1990's. Instead, when Davis arrived at a particular scene in the film, he tackled it by writing music in exactly the opposite mould of what initial reactions might dictate. Perhaps this is most evident in the cue "The Power Plant," in which Davis arrives at the score's most monumental crescendo of harmonic resonance for full ensemble and (ironically Mormon) choir, albeit briefly, for the moment when the lead character discovers the horrors of the real world for the first time. Another example exists in the cue "Welcome to the Real World," which is treated to a melancholy boy soprano solo despite the fact that that same man, Neo, is now surrounded by a group of real and genuinely caring people for the first time. Davis' work for the film is better recognized, however, for its harsh dissonance and startling brass tones in atonal bursts of energy that are indeed quite harrowing to hear. Even when the score isn't as truly unlistenable as the terrifying mangle of sound in "Unable to Speak," Davis inserts unease into every cue. As a horror experience, The Matrix is one of the more engaging on album, though this statement remains interesting in that such material really doesn't define the music as heard in the film. For this score, there is significant difference between the two. While Davis has claimed that he looked back at no orchestral film score as his guide for The Matrix, there are actually distinct similarities between this work and that which resulted from the Alien sequels by James Horner and Elliot Goldenthal. Fans of the latter composer, specifically, will note that Davis' handling of layers of instrumentation in order to produce disharmony, highly organized despite being unpleasant, is remarkably reminiscent to Goldenthal's avant-garde tendencies. The unusually large and diverse role for the brass section is mostly responsible for this style in The Matrix, along with ominous rumbling of the piano and other percussion. Some of these instruments are electronically manipulated to give them a foreign sound. There are no simple themes in The Matrix despite the franchise's movement towards the romantic in the sequels. The superhero element for Neo does shine through in "Anything is Possible," with the major-key statement on brass over choir in the cue providing an obvious hint of both his powers and his savior status. (This proves to be a theme in and of itself in the sequels.) Late in that cue, at 4:50 (as well as late in "Ontological Shock"), audiences hear the opening bars of the love theme for Neo and Trinity that would later flourish and resolve by "Trinity Definitely" in The Matrix Revolutions. The finale cue ends with a raucous crescendo that could easily fit in Alien 3, Heat, or Sphere. The two most distinct ideas in The Matrix are also staples of the series. First, the pulsating, pitch-defying brass polychord effect that wavers between trumpets on top and horns below is an extremely distinctive identity for the entire franchise. It's instantly recognizable and proves quite useful in the ease with which it can be integrated into nearly any cue. Davis' method of presenting the polychord motif at the very start of the film, with rolling piano and tingling metallic percussion, smartly carried over to the sequels. Secondly, the evil machines in The Matrix are given a rhythmic effect of a deliberate, accelerating movement, both tapped out lightly on the cymbals several times (a definite Horner influence) or blasted by brass in the aforementioned moment of choral tonality in "The Power Plant." The sense of the inevitable in this motif cannot be missed. Also omnipresent are metallic sound effects through all of these ideas, sometimes making you wonder if one of your major household appliances is malfunctioning. Altogether, The Matrix is extremely original, but it's not easy listening on album. The score has earned a significant amount of respect in subsequent decades, mirroring the cult-to-classic status of the film and supported by a very dedicated fanbase of listeners. The songs play such a prominent role in the film that there is often confusion for mainstream viewers about where the boundary between the songs and score exists. Perhaps the most obvious blurring of lines comes with the use of Rob Dougan's undoubtedly cool, rhythmically ascending "Clubbed to Death" piece for the scene when Neo is reintroduced to the matrix (and the lady in the red dress). So distinct was the adaptation of that piece into The Matrix that Dougan would himself expand the idea for The Matrix Reloaded. It's not surprising that most of the hype generated by the music of The Matrix came from the non-Davis material, which consists of songs that people often associate with the film when protesting and extending their belief that it inspires school shootings in the United States. The most interesting debate about music usage for the film ironically involved the use of "The Eyes of Truth" by Enigma, with a gothic new age style of heavy percussion and massive chorus that very obviously stirred anticipation in the film's trailers. The lack of an Enigma-like sound in the actual score was understandable when you look at the project from Davis' postmodern viewpoint, but it's interesting to observe that his two sequel scores slowly moved towards exactly that kind of sound. It's unlikely that this choice was made based on so much positive hype from the usage, but those listeners unsatisfied with the lack of that kind of sound to the first score eventually heard something more to their liking. The Varèse Sarabande release of the score at the time of the film's debut only included 30 minutes of material, omitting a significant portion of the film's middle "explanation scenes" and final action music, upwards of ten minutes in the case of the latter alone. Among all of Varèse's 30-minute albums of the middle to late 1990's, which were short due to financial, re-use reasons and not by the choice of the label, The Matrix was among those that truly bothered film music collectors the most. But you can't fault Varèse in this case, taking into account the fact that the recording included a 90-piece Los Angeles (in other words: union) ensemble. To their credit, they assembled 30 minutes of material that included a competent selection to represent the various parts of Davis' work, including most of the prevalent tonal passages of fantasy appeal. For some casual listeners, this presentation may even suffice. The problems posed by the Varèse album were solved for some film score collectors when the region 1 DVD was released with an isolated score track, and within a couple of years, 2-CD bootlegs of the music flooded the market. Surprising most in the community, Varèse chose to add The Matrix to its selection of "Deluxe Edition" entries within its series of limited Club titles in 2008, expanding the running time of the presentation to a whopping 78 minutes. Considering the relatively large pressing of 3,000 copies and the fact that many fans had already satisfied themselves with the DVD rip of the music, it should be no surprise that the album did not come close to selling out as quickly as some had anticipated, and copies remained on sale for less than $20 in 2009. As for the contents of the 2008 expanded product from the same label, nearly every major cue from the score is compiled into a well-rounded, if not perhaps overextended review of the score. Davis' material is obviously interesting enough in each of its minutes to retain attention from an intellectual standpoint, but there is some redundancy in the added music. Finally heard on a legitimate release is the plethora of rhythmic slapping, tingling, and wavering that accompanies Morpheus' crew as they maneuver or snap to action ("Switch Out" and "Whoa, Switch Brokers"). A better sense of propulsion is conveyed on the expanded 2008 product, with rhythmic urgency translating to even the cues of minimalistic volume. Among the most important additions to the original album's material is the traumatic "Nascent Nauseous Neo," the Japanese-flavored "Domo Showdown," the rhythmically dense, synthetically manipulated "Switch Out," and the pair of lengthy climax cues, "That's Gotta Hurt" and "Surprise." Enthusiasts of the sequel scores are treated to another hint of the Neo and Trinity love theme in the middle of "Switch Out." Still, if you tally all of these important additional cues, you end up with an optimized album running at far less than an hour in length, which would perhaps be the most comfortable compromise for an already difficult (and for some people, nearly intolerable) listening experience. The 2008 album did eventually sell out, as the film's cult status demanded more supply, and Varèse finally followed up in 2021 with a "Complete Edition" that boosted the presentation to 2 CDs with an overall running time just over 99 minutes and offers a plethora of brief new cues that often represent crescendos for a stinger moment. The 2021 album for The Matrix will become tiresome for all but the film and score's most ardent enthusiasts, as most of the added material is at least somewhat redundant. More than a few cues, like "Trinity Infinity," "Nascent Nauseous Neo," and "Ontological Shock," are presented in their longer variations with ambient opening or closing parts. The completely new cues are less vital in the first half of the score but illuminate important narrative movement in the latter half. Suspenseful crescendos await in "Neo Con Brio" and "Switch Works Her Boa," while "Follow the White Rabbit" is a very brief extension of "Neo Con Brio" and the duo of "Bring Me Dinner" and "The System" explore slight and increasingly atonal ambience. Of more interest is the decent horror of "Through the Surveillance Monitor," the tonal moment of gravity in "Cypher Cybernetic," the source-like harp of "Ignorance is Bliss/Cyber Cyphernetic," a brief optimistic swirl in "See Who?," and meaty material added to "Exit Mr. Hat." Later new inclusions are particularly vital to the narrative flow of the score and are most welcome, including the varied, important "The Cure" and the impressive pair of "It's the Smell" and "The Lobby," both of which offer a notable industrial rhythm with good presence across soundscape, the latter with more aggressive percussion. Like the 2008 album, the 2021 offering will be too long for most casual listeners, but if a superior 40-minute arrangement of the score were to be edited for that audience, a few of the 2021 album-specific cues could make the cut. Albeit short, "Fast Learning" is another important narrative cue with optimistic anticipation. Listeners hoping for additional performances of either the polychord motif of octave-defying alternations or the nascent love theme will be disappointed in that the newly revealed cues don't offer a greater role for those identities. For audiophiles, Varèse released not only 2,000 copies of the regular CD sets in 2021 but another 1,000 copies of hybrid SA-CDs at a higher cost that are capable of providing the regular stereo experience on ordinary CD players and can also supply a 5.1 surround alternative via SA-CD and Blu-ray players. Like other Club products of the era, the label offered high and low-resolution digital versions, too, and the insane, continued interest in LPs yielded a 3-LP version of the album as well. In 2024, Varèse opted to release a 25th Anniversary Edition of the score on a commercial CD with both digital and vinyl options. At only 44 minutes in length, this presentation combined the 1999 album's tracks with eight additional tracks pulled from the 2021 release, in chronological order overall outside than the placement of "Ignorance is Bliss/Cyber Cyphernetic." It's essentially an attempt to cull the oppressive length of the longer albums as recommended above and moderately supplement the 1999 product. The masters for the 2021 album were used for the majority of the tracks, but some utilized those from the 1999 and 2008 albums with their volume reduced, especially "Main Title/Trinity Infinity." One track, "A Morpheus Movement," was renamed, perhaps by error. Otherwise, though, despite this selection of cues having been chosen by Davis himself, there is no reason for dedicated collectors to seek this product. It's a decent commercial alternative for casual mainstream listeners when compared to the 1999 alternative, but almost all of the audiences of this score will have already picked it up on some prior album anyway, rendering this offering moot. Generally, Warner Bothers handled the commercial album situation a bit better with the sequels, addressing the finer balance between score and songs, especially in The Matrix Reloaded. On the whole, while The Matrix is a fine and original score for its film, it's by far the least enjoyable of the three original entries on any of its albums.
TRACK LISTINGS:
1999 Album:
Total Time: 30:11
2008 Album: Total Time: 77:54
* previously unreleased 2021 Albums: Total Time: 99:15
2024 Album: Total Time: 43:57
NOTES & QUOTES:
The 1999 album was advertised by Varèse Sarabande as
featuring 24-bit digital sound. The insert for that product, however,
offers no extra information about the film or score. The 2008
Varèse Club album contains lengthy notation about both the film
and score, though it concentrates heavily on Davis' career rather than
the construction of the music. The packaging creatively uses a green
spine accent rather than the maroon usually seen on Varèse's
products, an obvious nod to the color of the code in the film.
The insert of the 2021 album contains extensive information about the film and score. The packaging of the 2024 re-issue contains Anime-inspired artwork by Japanese illustrator Yuko Shimizu. Varèse released the following information about the 2021 SACD product:
Copyright ©
1999-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from The Matrix are Copyright © 1999, 2008, 2021, 2024, Varèse Sarabande, Varèse Sarabande, Varèse Sarabande (Two Albums), Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 6/17/99 and last updated 1/12/25. |
