From the droog-inspired video for Blur’s The Universal to Frank Ocean’s sampling of Eyes Wide Shut, pop is steeped in references to Stanley Kubrick films. The sixth album by production team Rich Machin and Ian Glover aspires to emulate his movies’ atmosphere, its eight tracks named after Kubrick characters. Entirely instrumental, all woodwinds and strings, it is a sumptuous, often soothing set but too one-paced to be transportive. Still, there’s a hint of menace in the mercurial DeLarge – the surname of A Clockwork Orange’s sociopathic Alex – while Dax, Kirk Douglas’s colonel in Paths of Glory, is honoured with a tranquil, contemplative cut, illuminating the film’s anti-war theme.
