Last year, Run The Jewels’ El-P shared a brief snippet of a song he’d recently written, a demo for a possible gig as the score composer for Denis Villeneuve’s then-upcoming Blade Runner 2049. El-P didn’t end up getting the job—it went to Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch instead—but he’s finally decided to let fans hear the track in full, releasing it on SoundCloud today.
El-P—who talked to us last year about the original soundtrack’s influences on him as an artist—used the same kind of Yamaha CS-80 synths for his composition that Vangelis used in the soundtrack to the original film. Listen to it, though, and it’s clear that he went with a much more aggressive, busy composition than those original tracks, a propulsive traffic jam of drumbeats and wailing sirens. It’s a striking piece, even if we can understand why Villeneuve and his producers went with something a little more-down-tempo for their frequently somber sci-fi sequel.