If you’re like me, you think tech-thriller Mr. Robot is one of the best shows of the past decade. If you’re especially like me, you find Mac Quayle’s score particularly engaging. Basically, you think it kills and that Quayle’s a genius. If you’re like me.
This summer is good for us, then. On June 3, Lakeshore Records releases Quayle’s score in a two-volume set in digital form. Then on June 24 the CD set is released. Invada Records, in partnership with Lakeshore Records, will release a special LP package in July. That vinyl will come just in time for the July 13 kickoff of the second season of the Golden Globe and Peabody Award-Winning USA Network series. Life is good. Damn good.
“For this soundtrack, the idea was to include as much music as possible from Season 1 and organize it chronologically by episode,” Quayle said in a press release.
He used an almost all electronic palette for the show, adding only one organic instrument – a piano.
“A signature sound in the show is created from what I call ‘PaulStretch Textures’: audio that has been manipulated by a time stretching program is converted into a sampler instrument making it playable on a keyboard,” he said.
For those who don’t know of Quayle, he’s supremely important to the Vehlinggo realm. In addition to his work on Mr. Robot and on shows like American Horror Story, his music as an additional composer for Cliff Martinez can be heard in Drive, along with a handful of other Martinez outings.
Quayle has also done plenty of work as a producer, remixer, and keyboardist. He has been involved in more than 300 releases, 40 Number One Billboard Dance hits, and earned a Grammy nomination for producing Donna Summer’s “I Will Go with You.” He has created music for Madonna, Whitney Houston, Depeche Mode, Britney Spears, Elvis Presley, Annie Lennox, New Order, Beyonce and Sting, to name a few. Like I said. He’s important. And a genius.
The synopsis of Mr. Robot, according to official channels: The show follows Elliot (Rami Malek), a young programmer who works as a cyber-security engineer by day and as a vigilante hacker by night. Elliot finds himself at a crossroads when the mysterious leader (Christian Slater) of an underground hacker group recruits him to destroy the firm he is paid to protect. Compelled by his personal beliefs, Elliot struggles to resist the chance to take down the multinational CEOs he believes are running, and ruining, the world. The series also stars Portia Doubleday, Carly Chaikin and Martin Wallström.
“Elliot uses programming and social engineering techniques to seek and exploit weakness in computer networks, and I use programming and sonic engineering techniques to help enhance the emotional content of each scene,” Quayle says in the release. “Armed with our computers and an arsenal of software tools, we both attempt to create and discover the right combination of notes (code) and sounds (keystrokes) that help tell the story (access the network).”
