Following her debut soundtrack for Today, I Will Be The Bread comes Break Break, a new soundtrack from composer and multi-instrumentalist Eve Essex. Directed by Haldean Brown and written by Sarah Marsh, Break Break follows an apocalypse survivor as she struggles with loneliness and paralysis in the face of uncertainty. Containing no dialog and only sporadic voiceover permeated by empty radio waves and gentle forest sounds, the film’s emotional tenor is propelled by its expressive electroacoustic score.

Set in a depopulated world amongst the Sonoma redwoods, Break Break echoes the isolation and apprehension of pandemic-era quarantine. A ham radio serves as the film’s central motif and provides percussion samples for the titular “Break Break.” Swinging between woozy abandon and frenetic alertness, the track posits dance as its own means of survival at the film's visually and sonically pulsating climax. Meanwhile, a delicate soprano saxophone in “Comfort” and the almost-canon structure of “Around I Go” bring a contemporary spin to kosmische-esque moments, evoking soundtracks of Tangerine Dream and Irmin Schmidt. Taken as a whole, Essex’s electroacoustic score maps the emotional highs and lows that drive the film’s exploration of risk – what are you willing to leave behind, and for what reason?

Break Break includes explorations of scale and through-composed arrangements that are new to Essex’s recordings. Multi-tracked combinations of voices, soprano saxophone, flute, piccolo and clarinet are layered into beds of orchestrated synthesizers, creating textures and densities not yet heard in her work. The 12 tracks comprising Break Break mark a major shift for Essex to a production-forward process, and serve as a sonic midpoint between her debut solo record, Here Appear (2018), and the expanded big-band character of her forthcoming second album, The Fabulous Truth (spring 2024).