I recently watched the film Solaris (1972) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. The soundtrack was created by Eduard Artemyev (b. 1937).
Artemyev was a Russian composer who created the scores for Tarkovsky’s Solaris, Mirror, and Stalker, as well as many other films over his career. His scores are famous for the use of the ANS synthesizer.
Solaris is a science fiction film set on a decaying, derelict space station that observes the ocean planet of Solaris, where, as a result of radiation experimentation, a replica (though not a continuation) of the protagonist’s deceased wife is materialized. Like most of Tarkovsky’s work, the goes into philosophical questions such as questioning the necessity of knowledge and science, its morality, as well as of treating beings (in the case of the film, the protagonists manifested ‘wife’) with respect, what draws a parallel with the questions of respect for AI, a common theme in 21st-century sci-fi.
The score for Solaris is a mix of more traditional instruments for the returning theme throughout the film (voice, organ, strings, marimba), field recordings (birds, people talking, clattering metal), and electronic synthesis. Throughout the film, the synthesizer is used to create dark drones as well as sound effects such as futuristic cars from combining it with what sounds like clattering trains and machinery such as air conditioning fans. Another sound that is created sounds like a howling wind.
The ANS Synthesizer was invented by Evgeny Murzin (b. 1914) over a period of 20 years (1937-57) and is based on the method of graphical or drawn sound. This made it possible to visualise a sound wave, as well as create a sound from a drawn spectrogram.
The sine waves are generated from printed glass disks. Each disk has 144 tracks, for a total of 730 microtones spanning 10 octaves. The interface displays these vertically through projected modulating lights with the lowest frequencies being at the bottom and higher frequencies at the top. The horizontal axis plots time. The user ‘draws’ on a non-drying mastic glass plate that allows light to pass through.
Notably, the influential experimental music group Coil also made use of the ANS in a box set released CoilANS. The instrument was used to create drones similar to other work created by Coil like Time Machines. Below are some of the images used to create the boxset.