Press Release from Dragon's Domain:Dragon’s Domain Records presents THE DANIEL LICHT COLLECTION – VOLUME 2, featuring music composed by Daniel Licht (DEXTER, DISHONORED, SILENT HILL) for two films from his extensive filmography, BRAVE NEW WORLD and BENEATH THE DARK.
Airing on the NBC network in 1998, BRAVE NEW WORLD was directed by Leslie Libman and Larry Williams, adapted by Dan Mazur and David Tausik and boasted an all-star cast including Peter Gallagher, Leonard Nimoy, Tim Guinee, Sally Kirkland, Rya Kihlstedt, Daniel Day Kim and Miguel Ferrer. Loosely based on the 1932 novel by Aldous Huxley, BRAVE NEW WORLD chronicles a dystopian future where the three primary tenants are “No privacy, No family, and No monogamy”. Emotions and individuality are conditioned out of children at a young age and there are no lasting relationships because “everyone belongs to everyone else”.
Bernard Marx (Gallagher), new Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, is informed by Lenina (Kihlstedt) that she did not use her state mandated birth control and is now pregnant with his child. Bernard insists she terminate the pregnancy but Lenina refuses and is subsequently banished from their society. Marx lets Lenina go. As time passes, he becomes more unhappy and no amount of Soma, a recreational drug encouraged by the government to increase euphoria, can cheer him up. In a desperate attempt to reconnect with his heart-felt emotions and raw human experiences, Marx abandons his ultimate dream job and follows Lenina into exile…
To materialize the tenants of BRAVE NEW WORLD, composer Daniel Licht created a daring musical topography that is largely devoid of genuine emotion. Everything feels synthetic or manufactured. Licht’s ubiquitous use of synthesizers, samples, backwards audio and other modern tools of technology paints a futuristic landscape that is wholly controlled by the fallacy that “sadness is an illusion.”
Released in 2010, BENEATH THE DARK was written and directed by Chad Feehan (SOUTHLAND, RAY DONOVAN, LAWMEN: BASS REEVES), starring Josh Stewart, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Chris Browning, Angela Featherstone and Afemo Omilami.
BENEATH THE DARK tells the story of a young couple, Paul (Stewart) and Adrienne (Sigler) who are driving through the Mojave desert to attend a fraternity wedding in Los Angeles. Feeling tired “and horny”, the pair pulls off the highway and checks into seedy Roy’s Motel and Café. While seated alone in the empty eatery, Paul is approached by a weary traveler claiming to be a “son of God” and warns Paul, “the devil believes in you.” The surreal encounter catalyzes a freakish chain of unexplained events forcing the young couple to go beneath the dark, coming face-to-face with Paul’s scandalous past…
The music for BENEATH THE DARK was composed by Licht while on hiatus between scoring seasons of DEXTER. Licht crafts a curiously cautious noir-bent score for BENEATH THE DARK that is careful not to usurp the meticulous balance of tone, mood, and color throughout the natural bloom of the narrative. Licht’s score provides a stark contrast to the physical action by placing an emphasis on the underflowing shadows.
Daniel Licht grew up in suburban Detroit and started playing clarinet when he was only eight years old. He transitioned to guitar four years later and began his musical career strumming a six-string in small jazz ensembles at nightclubs throughout The Motor City. Upon graduating high school, Licht attended Hampshire College in Massachusetts studying composition, jazz, and world music. He then pulled up stakes and moved to the Lower East Side in New York City to further his career as a musical artist. After a brief stint in northern Europe scribing scores for theatre, dance companies and advertising agencies, Licht relocated to Los Angeles to pursue film scoring.
A jack-of-all-trades composer and multi-instrumentalist, Licht scribed scores for film productions including CHILDREN OF THE CORN II: THE FINAL SACRIFICE, TICKS, HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE, THINNER, BAD MOON and for television, JAKE IN PROGRESS, BODY OF PROOF, DEXTER and THE RED ROAD before establishing a name for himself in the videogame industry with scores for SILENT HILL: DOWNPOUR, SILENT HILL: BOOK OF MEMORIES, DISHONORED, DISHONORED: DUNWALL CITY TRIALS and DISHONORED 2.
Sadly, Daniel Licht passed away on August 2, 2017 at his home in Topanga, California, at the age of sixty, an incredible talent taken far too soon.
Dragon’s Domain Records presents THE DANIEL LICHT COLLECTION – VOLUME 2, featuring the premiere releases of music composed by Daniel Licht for BRAVE NEW WORLD and BENEATH THE DARK. The liner notes are written by author and composer Brian Satterwhite. The music has been mastered by James Nelson at Digital Outland.
