It’s always a tall task reimagining any movie, let alone one as iconic as 1965’s The Ipcress File. With a great Michael Caine performance, as British agent Harry Palmer, and one of the best John Barry scores, these are tough shoes to fill. Nonetheless, ITV have turned The Ipcress File into a new series, with Joe Cole as Harry Palmer.
Filling Barry’s role is neoclassical (and at times experimental) composer Tom Hodge. Tom and I actually spoke early in 2021 about his score for the 5x BAFTA nominated and 2x Golden Globe nominated (winning one of the latter) The Mauritanian. Perhaps based off the back of that, Tom has picked The Film Scorer to premiere his stylish, noiry jazz cue “A Token of Gratitude” ahead of his score’s March 25th release.
“A prototype of this cue and its themes was one of the great unlocking codes to the sound and feel of my Ipcress score,” Tom told me. “Its working title way back in March ‘21, was ‘Rosenthaler Platz’ (inspired by Harry’s ability to acquire caviar, I originally named all the thematic material after different Geisterbahn stations in Berlin) and this was one of the cues that really started to stick to the assembly images nicely.”
Ultimately, Tom said that this cue “sums up a lot of what I was trying to do in keeping a 60s vibe with a modern sensibility . . . I allowed myself Moog and Buchla as they were just coming into existence then, but I’ll go out on a 21st century limb and say you definitely wouldn’t find this type of approach in a John Barry score! It’s more a kind of rolling ‘break’ that you’d connect with hip hop, breakbeat, or electronic music.” The track acts as a sort of musical launching point for Harry and his team, starting off as a “‘let’s-get-to-work’ theme for our WOOC(P) team [the security/intelligence unit Harry works for]” and Harry, before subsequent iterations arise for the team’s other members.
I’m excited that Tom has asked The Film Scorer to premiere “A Token of Gratitude,” his score album’s final cue. It starts off sleek and stylish, building into a jazz/orchestral hybrid climax of danger and intrigue. The John Barry comparisons are inevitable, especially given its general 60s vibe, but I assure you: Tom makes The Ipcress File completely his own. Listen to the full cue below and keep scrolling for a more in-depth look into the cue and score, the tracklist, and some additional information.
The Ipcress File is currently airing on ITV in the UK, with the final episode scheduled to air on April 10th. The show will premiere on AMC+ in the United States and Canada in May. Tom’s score releases on March 25th and will be available on all major platforms and services courtesy of Lakeshore Records.
More About “A Token of Gratitude”
Tom gave me an in-depth rundown of this track and his score at large: “An important musical part of it all is the trombone stinger that pops up (2 tenor trombones & 2 bass trombones). When it comes to finding the musical answers, we talk mainly about narrative arc, the human emotional cost and the wider context of course, but I was struck by something Stuart our editor said very early in proceedings, that it did need to be a good ‘rollicking ride’ too!” Rounding out the bulk of the instrumentation are “a woodwind quartet of flute, clarinet, and soprano and tenor saxes. And the solo at the beginning is Eliza Marshall on alto flute, plus a little bit of electric piano from me.”
“The final bit of the sonic puzzle was the strings. This was very much the second phase of proceedings. I worked up a lot of music with the band above and lots of Ollie Howell’s guitar ‘choir’ but actually unusually avoided doing too much string orchestration. Of course, mostly I embed the strings right from the beginning of any cue, but I had it in my head here to keep them up my sleeve, let the feel of the score really bed in and bring the string orchestra later to specifically highlight the storyline, or (as only strings can do) widen the scale of any given sequence. This was certainly only possible because I was on the job so early in proceedings – the rough cuts were mostly temped with my score but with a version without string orchestra. It gave us the ideal balance of a solid thematic stepping off point but also loads of scope for development.”
“Chris Warner came aboard to assist getting 120+ cues over the line with the multitude of tasks that entails, but really I gave him a strong focus on the string orchestration (not to mention running the sessions over in Hungary with the Budapest Art Orchestra). We went back and forth exploring ways of lacing key themes into the narrative (especially another of my so-called Geisterbahn ideas, ‘Potsdamer Platz’, that appears throughout the series and broadly tracks the emotional cost of being a spy). The balance was always about finding the edge, so the string orchestra linked to the original raw feel of the bass, drums, and guitar whilst fulfilling a more traditional narrative scoring function.”
Tracklist for The Ipcress File
- The Ipcress File
- An Excellent Teacher
- Redcaps
- Lost Him
- News For Natalie
- Tools Of Historical Imperative
- Landlady Calls
- Sentimental Weakness
- Vespa Chase
- There’s Nothing We Can Do
- I Thought You Were Dead
- Beirut Airport
- Confirm Your Prejudice
- Aftermath
- Preparation For War
- A Certain Disillusionment
- Blindfold
- The Exchange
- Everyday
- There Must Be Use For A Man Like That
- Exploiting People
- I Think She’s Lying, Sir
- A Shard Of Hope
- Girls In The Picture
- Dawson Sketches
- Do The Unthinkable
- In The Woods
- Out Of The Woods
- I Will Find Him
- Housemartin
- They Did Have A File
- I’m Sorry, It Was Selfish Of Me
- You Look Like A Strong Chap
- Birch Grove
- A Token Of Gratitude
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