Milan Records release the soundtrack to Thirteen Lives by composer Benjamin Wallfisch. The movie recounts the incredible true story of the tremendous global effort to rescue a Thai soccer team who become trapped in the Tham Luang cave during an unexpected rainstorm. Faced with insurmountable odds, a team of the world’s most skilled and experienced divers – uniquely able to navigate the maze of flooded, narrow cave tunnels – join with Thai forces and more than 10,000 volunteers to attempt a harrowing rescue of the twelve boys and their coach. With impossibly high stakes and the entire world watching, the group embarks on their most challenging dive yet, showcasing the limitlessness of the human spirit in the process...

Benjamin Wallfisch's score for Thirteen Lives is harrowing, atmospheric and, on occasion, incredibly moving. The album consists of 15-tracks (45 min, 53 sec) which set the scene and create atmosphere and tension for the Amazon Original movie.

Talking about the score, Wallfisch says: "The responsibility of finding a musical analogue for this story of unimaginable heroism, without over-dramatizing or trivializing the true events, and of course incorporating the complex and rich musical heritage of the region, was a unique challenge, and one I couldn’t have done without the incredible collaborative spirit Ron has. An honour of a lifetime."

The score is also at times very experimental, manipulating instruments to make them sound as if they are being warped under water, and with the percussion of the ticking clock being made from samples of the scraping, tapping, and air escape from oxygen canisters, alongside many other unusual score concepts.

Technically this is a score that does everything right. It creates tension, drama, themes of heroism and reflective pieces. And for the movie it works its charm. But on a standalone basis it's a little harder to swallow.

'Tham Luang' and 'Prayer' work beautifully as melancholic mini works of art and I thoroughly enjoyed the creativity of the electronic manipulation of some segments of the score to create a feeling of hearing things underwater. There's no faulting it as all... other than it's not really a score, for the most part, that I'd want to listen to outside of the film it was composed for.

7

Darren Rea