While most online content creators struggle to find copyright-friendly music to add to videos, Sophomore, almost in defiance of DRM algorithms, takes the opposite approach: he searches far and wide for obscure video, from Canada’s National Film Board archives to police dashcam footage, to augment his analogue synth dreamscapes.
In ‘Ghost Rider’, we ride shotgun for a high-speed car chase in gloriously vintage fashion that can’t help but call to mind the sounds of College and Cliff Martinez in Nicolas Winding Refn’s film Drive, or The Reds in Michael Mann’s Manhunter. Sophomore’s relaxed drum machine rhythms, blissed out arpeggios, and booming, cinematic pads would fit right at home with Italians Do It Better’s faux film score releases, but he does one better by setting the narrative scene himself with a car chase that looks like it could have happened right on the highway nearest to your own home. Despite leveraging an aesthetic sound palette that is no doubt familiar by now to us all, the cumulative effect is as entrancing as it is unique.
If you liked Ghost Rider, check out Sophomore’s other original compositions set to video on his YouTube channel or follow him on Soundcloud.
— review by autonomy
