The 80s hadn’t yet reared its fluorescent head, but the opening sequence of 1979 Indian action thriller The Burning Train shares all the hallmarks, as a train thunders past distorted by bright layers of primary colours colours. While the film may have fallen through the railway sleepers of history, its soundtrack by R.D. Burman grabs you from the first bar and must’ve had Breakplus rubbing his hands together when he first stumbled across it.
Adopting the french translation for this edit on Mr Beatnick‘s Mythstery imprint, ‘Le Train Enflamme’ initially resembles a techno aesthetic more than its Bollywood foundations. The bleeps and bloops, guitar licks and sitar twangs from the original soon hint at something a little warmer and more playful, then cinematic string, brass fanfares and the “burning train” refrain are employed just enough not to cheese out the arrangement. Similar to how Halal Disco and Hamam House take on sounds from Middle East, Breakplus works this into a pulsating, swirling, oddball house track and raises questions about just how many other forgotten Bollywood films might contain similar treasures on their soundtrack.
Armes Secrètes EP is out 25th November, with a track from Mr Beatnick on the flip – pre-order from Bandcamp.
