Featuring an incredible, indelible score from Ceiri Torjussen, ‘The Canal’ (released this month on Lakeshore Records) tells the story of David Williams (Rupert Evans) and his wife, Alice (Hannah Hoekstra), who move into a beautiful period house by the canal with their small child, Billy. As David begins to suspect that is wife is cheating on him, he also starts to have nightmarish visions of an evil presence he believes inhabits the home.

Ergo, Torjussen’s highly-arousing, highly-creative score carries us into David’s world, into his moments of terror and out the other side by using some very unique sounds and textures. Moments of a terrifying nature, such as ‘Washing The Blood,’ ‘The Sewer of the Mind,’ and both ‘Moviola Creeps’ and ‘Killing Clare’ are heightened by Torjussen’s evocative and atmospheric heart beats.

Welsh-born, multi award-winning composer Torjussen (pronounced Kay-Ree) has credits that run the gamut of independent films, documentaries, network TV, animation and numerous large-budget studio films. But what he has done here on ‘The Canal’ is beyond anything I’ve ever heard from the Welshman. Tracks such as ‘Burial and Wake,’ ‘Wall of Sound,’ and ‘Insomniac’ all contain the usual suspects when it comes to instruments used, but what the inventive composer does is make them all unrecognizable.

Most impressively, it has been done so without the use of electronic sound distortion. Basically, we have 23 tracks that use acoustic music that capture disturbing whispers, maddening moments of insanity, and all that derive from the organic roots of the woods, strings and keys. It is, summed up in one word, breathtaking of an art form that Torjussen has conjured up.

Reviewed by: Russell A. Trunk