Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein – Stranger Things Vol. One

Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein
Stranger Things Volume One Soundtrack
(2x Clear Black Smoke Vinyl)
Release: 2016

Track Listing:

1. Stranger Things
2. Kids
3. Nancy And Barb
4. This Isn't You
5. Lay-Z-Boy
6. Friendship
7. Eleven
8. A Kiss
9. Castle Byers
10. Hawkins
11. The Upside Down
12. After Sarah
13. One Blink For Yes
14. Photos In The Woods
15. Fresh Blood
16. Lamps
17. Hallucinations
18. Hanging Lights
19. Biking To School
20. Are You Sure?
21. Agents
22. Papa
23. Cops Are Good At Finding
24. No Weapons
25. Walking Through The Upside Down
26. She'll Kill You
27. Run Away
28. No Autopsy
29. Dispatch
30. Joyce And Lonnie Fighting
31. Lights Out
32. Hazmat Suits
33. Theoretically
34. You Can Talk To Me
35. What Else Is There To Do?
36. Hawkins Lab

More Info: 
Released in 2016 on Invada and Lakeshore Records, Stranger Things: Volume One is the seminal debut score by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein that kickstarted an entire cultural resurgence in analog, hardware-driven synth scoring. Operating far outside traditional Hollywood orchestral tropes, the duo built the album using a laboratory of vintage synthesizers including the Prophet-6, Roland Juno-6, ARP 2600, and Mellotron, to create a sonic world that pays homage to 1980s pioneers like Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, and John Carpenter without feeling like a hollow pastiche. The music balances luminous, bittersweet innocence with spine-chilling dread, drifting from the instantly iconic, hypnotic pulse of the "Stranger Things" main theme into warm, melodic bedroom-pop nostalgia on tracks like "Kids" and "Biking to School." Beneath that surface warmth, however, lurk subterranean bass drones, tape-saturated flutter, and sharp, metallic dissonance on cues like "The Upside Down" and "A Kiss." The resulting sound is lush, tactile, and cinematic, wrapping the listener in a dreamlike, neon haze where childhood wonder constantly collides with creeping cosmic terror.