Tick of the Clock – Chromatics

In 2007 Chromatics' album brought a breakthrough for the band. After discontinuing punk music and beginning to emerge in electronic music, Night Drive was a success, most critics gave a general positive feedback. It's no coincidence that the more than 15-minute track of Tick of the Clock drew the attention of filmmakers. Not only for the track itself, but also for the band.

Many may be familiar with this song from the famous Drive opening scene, starring Ryan Gosling. Aside from being a great movie and truly worth watching, Tick of the Clock is sharply immersed in the film's visuality. Since the movie starts with a car chase, Tick of the Clock is the perfect choice for suspense.

"There's a hundred-thousand streets in this city. You don't need to know the route. You give me a time and a place, I give you a five minute window. Anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours. No matter what. Anything happens a minute either side of that and you're on your own. Do you understand?" (quote from Drive (2011))

Repetitive music swirling with the synth, like you are listening it from another room. The peaking organ music takes you into an almost ethereal state of mind when the repetitive nature of the music takes us back. From the twelfth minute, the music fades and we hear vinyl record scratch sound, which is perhaps meant to bring us back to the present. This 15:39 is a journey from the Earth to the entrance of heaven and back. For night drivers this is a must have.

Chromatics is not overgrown by their music, it remains under their control before you digress and a small nuance always brings your attention back to the music. It is not surprising that Tick of the Clock has been repeatedly featured in films and commercials. What's more, they were featured in season three of Twin Peaks with “Shadow” and they also provided music for the Chanel SS13 show. Can you blame them with such a musical concept that they have found patrons like David Lynch and Karl Lagerfeld?

You can learn more about Chromatics here:

About the Curator - Fanni Gyenes

Thanks for her parents’ Yugoslavian pressed vinyl collection, Fanni was surrounded by music from a very young age in Budapest, Hungary where she grew up and currently lives. As a philologist, she wrote for a Hungarian online music magazine and was a band manager of two bands for three years during her university years. 

At present, she is studying as an assistant director and working in films. She believes that music is one of the most powerful art forms that bonds people regardless distance, culture and ethnicity. As a loyal szitizen (sic!), she attends on Hungary’s most famous music festival, Sziget Festival every year. 

In her free time she loves travelling, reading classics, taking pictures, gardening and learning new languages, she is getting familiar with Russian and Italian lately.  You can find Fanni on Instagram and Twitter.