@ Usher Hall, Edinburgh, on Sat 17 Oct 2015

Live scoring films has become a right of passage for artists of a certain ilk, be it Field Music doing their art rock thing to pictures of herring fishermen, or King Creosote’s Scottish nostalgia trip. But Asian Dub Foundation have over a decade of form in the field, having redone Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack to 1966 film Battle of Algiers as far back as 2004. Tonight, they provide the live soundtrack to George Lucas‘s pre-Star Wars directorial debut, the dystopian sci-fi fantasy, THX 1138, and produce a musical setting that both respects and updates the original.

Lucas’ film is beautiful-looking – a stylish 70s imagining of a clinical and chilling technological future in which drugged, compliant and anonymised humans do the bidding of the powers that be, until a couple (a young, handsome Robert Duvall and the relative unknown Maggie McOmie) stop taking the drugs and try to rebel. It owes a debt to 1984, and a debt to Metropolis, but is wholly enjoyable in its own right, raising all the right questions and proffering uncomfortable truths about humanity.

It ages well; more so since ADF have rid it of any 70s musical signifiers. Lalo Schifrin‘s heavily-sampled score is still in attendance, but the band have blended their own electronica, dub and drum and bass in perfectly. At points, it’s difficult to know where the original soundtrack ends and ADF begin until you glance down from the film to find the band have stopped playing. When they are playing, the discordant flute, heavy bass and skittering drums set exactly the right tone.

But as engaging as the composition is, this evening it is too high in the mix. It overwhelms key pieces of dialogue (and fortunately, this is not a film that’s heavy on dialogue); the audience are left mentally adjusting the balance. It comes into its own during the car chase sequence towards the end – menacing drum and bass as robot cops pursue Duvall through the San Francisco subway – but it’s the only time the extra volume really works in concord with the film. As a creative endeavour it’s very successful, but with some sound tweaks it could be more complete an experience.