In last week’s In Rotation I explained my fascination with the score to Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 sci-fi classic Solaris, which former Reader movie man Jonathan Rosenbaum describes as a “soulful Soviet ‘response’ to 2001: A Space Odyssey.” Russian electronic-music composer Eduard Artemyev was commissioned to build it, and the resulting product is a planet of taut soundscapes filled with high-frequency buzzes and clouds of airy nothingness that revolve around Bach’s solo organ piece Chorale Prelude in F Minor, which acts as the soundtrack’s bloodline. Fortunately enough, some kind soul uploaded the entire piece of music to YouTube, all 51 minutes of it. And it’s (kind of) today’s 12 O’Clock Track.
