The Hurt Locker (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

The Hurt Locker was the David vs. Goliath story of the 2010 Academy Awards, a modestly budgeted independent examination of the Iraq war’s impact on a close-knit bomb disposal squad that eventually captured six Oscars. Though nominated for their musical contributions to the film, composers Buck Sanders and Marco Beltrami could argue they deserve a share of the sound awards as well — so closely is their eerie, synthetic/organic fusion score interwoven with the film’s overall sound design. At the core of their ethereal, disquieting soundtrack are instrumental performances by the composers themselves (Beltrami on significantly altered piano, Sanders on ghostly, wafting guitar), augmented by a dozen skilled session soloists operating in a studio environ where experimentalism was freely encouraged. The resulting musical score contains but the barest traces of traditional themes and musical motifs, wed to fleeting wisps of Middle Eastern modalities in a digitally manipulated soundscape that’s responsible not so much for the film’s sense of time and place as it’s impressionistic, oft-unsettling emotional core.