Rat Film (Original Soundtrack)

Domino Soundtracks is proud to present its inaugural release, an original soundtrack recording from Dan Deacon of the provocative essay-film Rat Film. Much as Theo Anthony’s film uses rat infestation in Baltimore, the city both he and Deacon call home, as a starting point from which to probe deeply entangled issues of race and class, Deacon’s bold and beautiful score, takes the listener on an exploratory sensory trip through the city streets. Rat Film marks Deacon’s first full record devoted to modern composition. In between his four ecstatic electronic-pop albums, Deacon has frequently flexed the 21st-century classical muscles he first developed studying at SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Music. He’s provided soundtracks for film and stage giants ranging from Francis Ford Coppola’s Twixt to Justin Peck’s “The Times Are Racing” featured recently at the NYC Ballet. Deacon’s impressive array of compositional commissions includes pieces with Kronos Quartet at Lincoln Center, Sigur Rós at the L.A. Philharmonic, and So Percussion at the Barbican Centre. Rat Film offers the first recorded document of this parallel career—and both as a self-contained album and a companion piece to an equally potent film, it astounds.