A Winged Victory For The Sullen—the modern classical / ambient duo composed of Dustin O’Halloran and Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie—will release a brand new original film score for the French thriller, “Iris,” directed by Jalil Lespert and starring Romain Duris and Charlotte Le Bon.

The story of the film revolves around the kidnapping of the wife of a wealthy banker in the middle of Paris. The main suspect is a down and out mechanic, but there is a deeper, darker and mysterious plot underway that goes beyond the initial assumptions from the police. The official trailer can be viewed below.

The “Iris” recording sessions began with their sound collaborator Francesco Donadelloin the form of some modular synth sessions in Berlin. Dustin and Adam began working from the script in their own studios, and after filming commenced they continued to create music that could be used for first edits of the film—each day getting new scenes that triggered ideas that would become the base of the film score. Over the course of the next few months, the two slowly crafted the music with weekly discussion from their studio to the editing room. The final sessions to what is now the score of “Iris” were recorded with a 40-piece string orchestra at Magyar Radio in Budapest.

Adam & Dustin had this to say of the making of their score for Iris,

“Despite A Winged Victory For The Sullen being associated with film score type music, trying to survive the process of creating the modern film score is not for people with fragile egos. It requires those who are the most responsive to change. The director and the film presented a new set of challenges, so we decided to stop thinking about cinema as an object, and moved closer to using the film’s images as triggers for experiences. The more we were able to let go, and see the music as something that happens, like a process—not a quality, the more we were able to reach a place that sounded like us. It was as if we were making our first record all over again, except being filtered through another language littered with dead metaphors.”

Tracklisting:

01. Prologue Iris
02. Retour Au Champs De Mars
03. Fantasme
04. Gare Du Nord Part One
05. L’embauche
06. Le Retour En Foret
07. Metro Part Three
08. Flashback Antoine
09. Galerie
10. Le Renversement
11. Normandie
12. Comme On A Dit

Iris OST is scheduled for January 17 release via Erased Tapes, with “Galerie” streamable in full below.