Another alumni from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Tristram Cary cut his teeth composing film, with The Ladykillers and Quatermass and the pit as fine examples of him being able to tackle “traditional soundtracks”. Quatermass in particular fits Hammer “orchestral horror” mold.

That doesn’t mean Cary didn’t indulge into abstract experimentation. Tristram Cary composed and executed the music for the second Doctor Who serial, The Daleks. It’s well known on the Whodom that Sydney Newman didn’t want “bug-eyed monsters” for the show, so having mutant yuckies encased in metal armour was probably the workaround.

Honestly, it’s a tough watch at seven episodes, but you gotta realise, there were no repeats, and the repetitive nature of the serial (capture, escape, capture, escape) is more of sign of how stories were told during the 60s than anything else.

Still, Cary’s music is phenomenal, with City Music 3 and Dalek City Corridor as eerie atmospheric pieces. It’s all about that reverb for me, really. It screams otherworldly and deadly.

The minimalist approach Tristram Cary took for many of his composition borders on ambient staccato. From the album It’s time for Tristram Cary (Works for Film, Television, Exhibition & Sculpture), I think the best tracks you can dive in are Escalator Music and Centre Music. Both are retrofuturistic pieces that conjur a sterile, dystopic future not too far from what George Lucas painted on THX 1138.

-Sam J. Valdés López