Lance Ferguson – L’ocean de toi (Soundtrack)

 Lance Ferguson (of The Bamboos, Menagerie and lately, The Ferguson Rogers Process) releases ‘L’ocean de toi’, his newly scored soundtrack for the 1981 French film of the same name, coming out on his own Pacific Theatre label. Romantic Thriller “L’ocean de toi” was the debut film by enigmatic French director Leroi Alarie, long thought lost forever, but recently a 35mm print was unearthed that he has agreed to release after many requests and much negotiation. Ahead of its planned restoration and subsequent re-release, Ferguson was asked to compose all-new music for the film personally by Alarie (now aged 69), as the original score was never to the auteur’s liking – cobbled together at the time with a patchwork of sound library pieces imposed upon him by the film’s producers in order to save money. He was in so much conflict with the producers throughout the shooting and editing of the film that upon completion he took the only existing finished print and refused to have it released. Ferguson’s score is a collection of languid, dreamy (mainly) instrumental Funk pieces that evoke the hazy, sun-kissed atmosphere of the film and will appeal to fans of Khruangbin, Tom Misch, FKJ and Air. Conceived and imagined to suit the aesthetic of the era, but with an inevitable twist of “la modernit “. It’s a fitting match for this new addition to the canon of early-’80s European arthouse cinema, thankfully rescued from obscurity for 21st-century audiences to finally enjoy.