Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Morning Star DECEMBER 29, 2023 - by Simon Duff

BRIAN ENO: TOP BOY SOUNDTRACK

Most commissioned film and TV scores are composed to fit the picture with frame accuracy. Not so for Brian Eno, who prefers to give directors and editors a range of music when meeting a brief, leaving them to decide where it should fit during the edit.

Such is the case for Top Boy, Netflix's contemporary crime drama set in Hackney. Eno opts for soft and hard ambient textures, off-centre rhythms and hidden atmosphere. Standout tracks include Overground, a drifting melodic dreamscape, and the focused modesty of the main titles.

Eno says of the work: "Top Boy is really about children in a pretty bad situation. So I explored the internal world of children's characters, not just what's happening to them in the external world. Quite a lot of the music was deliberately naive, it was sort of simple. The melodies were simple, not really sophisticated, or grown-up."

A worthy edition to any Eno collection.