El-P Shares Rejected Blade Runner 2049 Trailer Score

Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

El-P Shares Rejected Blade Runner 2049 Trailer Score

Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

El-P, indie-rap production mastermind and one half of Run The Jewels, has lately been dropping a lot of hints on Twitter about a mysterious film-score project that he’s been working on. If you’ve been paying attention to El’s work since his discordant, mind-altering Company Flow or Def Jux days, you know that El’s always been soundtracking the dystopian sci-fi movies in our collective head, so it’s cool that he’s finally going to get to do a real one. And now he’s given us some hint of how it might sound.

Last year, some smart got El-P to compose music for the two-minute trailer for Blade Runner 2049, the cult-beloved sci-fi reboot. He’s already shared a snippet from it, but now he’s let the world hear the whole thing. The movie’s producers ultimately decided not to go with El’s music for the trailer. I think they made a mistake. El’s score sounds like a spaceship finding a beautiful way to eat itself. Here’s what he says about it:

as i get closer and closer to being able to announce the film score i’m doing this year, i thought it might be nice to finally throw out this little piece. its what i put together for the blade runner 2 trailer when they called on me. i was honored to even be thought of. almost every sound apart from percussion was created on the same type of synth vangelis used for the original blade runner score. its unmixed as i only had about 2 days to whip it together and send over. enjoy.

And here’s what he made:

Benjamin Wallfisch and Hans Zimmer made a great score for Blade Runner 2049; I think it was one of the best things about the movie. But I still would’ve rather heard El’s version.

more from New Music