Inception. Hans Zimmer

Cobb (Leonardo di Caprio), a man with a tortured past and his cohort Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt) are hired by wealthy industrialist Saito (Ken Watanabe) to infiltrate the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), a corporate rival, and perform an inception, a dangerous procedure where, rather than extracting information, an idea is surreptitiously placed into the subject’s subconscious without them realizing. After assembling his team with Ariadne (Ellen Page), Eames (Tom Hardy) and Yusuf (Dileep Rao), Cobb begins his journey into dreamworld, where he not only has to contend with the dangers presented by the task, but also his own personal demons, in the form of his long-dead wife Mal (Marion Cotillard).

Hans Zimmer’s score is surprisingly conventional, heavily rooted in the increasingly ubiquitous action style, in that it is low on themes and motifs, but heavy on rhythms and ambient sound design elements. The score oscillates between two or three styles, all of which inhabit a similar harmonic world, and all of which seek to blur the lines between reality and the dream-world with generous layers of electronic pulses and synthesized chords, not too dissimilar from the music composers like Vangelis and Brad Fiedel wrote during the 1980s. The conclusive theme “Time” incorporates subtle piano performances and guitar licks performed by guitarist Johnny Marr of the rock band Modest Mouse.