Eerie electronica in a perfect setting

Stranger Things Barbican

Arolling fog of dry ice glowing with light from fluorescent tubes was all that could be seen of Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein as they performed a brilliant set of music from the soundtracks of the hit TV show Stranger Things on Saturday night.

Two years ago, Dixon and Stein were retro synthesizer nuts with an instrumental band called Survive, who had released one album in six years. But then the writer/directors of Stranger Things, Matt and Ross Duffer, approached them to create the soundtrack to their paean to Eighties horror and sci-fi movies.

The Netflix series proved to be a worldwide hit, creating a star out of then-12-year-old British actress Millie Bobby Brown, while the haunting title sequence became as recognisable as those of Twin Peaks or The X-files. The score for season one of the series won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music, as well two Grammy nominations.

Played live, the influences on Dixon and Stein’s eerie soundtracks are not hard to spot. There were nods to John Carpenter (The Thing, from 1982; Christine, from 1983) and to the icy menace of Tangerine Dream – both the soundtrack for William Friedkin’s Sorcerer (1977) and the ambient Seventies solo work of the band’s founder, Edgar Froese. The sounds of analogue synthesizers will be familiar to anyone who has ever heard the Human League, Soft Cell, Ultravox or Gary Numan, but pop was not on the menu here.

The gig was played in hushed quiet. Without the success of the TV show, this was music that might only have been heard by nerdy aficionados in dingy clubs, but the lovely acoustics of the Barbican gave space to all its beautiful textures: choral wails oscillated, bass blurred at the edges, rhythms hissed and clashed.

Stranger Things was not screened at all – a decision that paid off handsomely. The stage set, designed by light artist MFO, focused on atmosphere. Blinking white beams through the mist, blue and red strobe effects and pervasive darkness heightened the experience. This was experimental electronica given the perfect setting.