By LoffMusic – October 2025
Kathryn Bigelow’s new film is here…and its soundtrack doesn’t just accompany the tension: it punctuates it.
The political thriller A House of Dynamite (premiering on Netflix on October 24) builds like a countdown, and the music composed by Volker Bertelmann (aka Hauschka) runs through that pulse with surgical precision.(sg.news.yahoo.com)
So yes: this is not a background soundtrack. It is the beating heart beneath the machinery of chaos.
Who signs this musical clock?
Bertelmann, Oscar winner for All Quiet on the Western Front, is not content with repeating the formula. In his interview he makes this clear:
“Sometimes I get lost when I see it for the first time… I just have to wait two hours after that to start writing music because I’m shocked.”
And in another:
“You need to have some things in your pocket to make the tension higher.”
The guy who created atmospheres for a world war now does it for 18 minutes that could end it all. Because the film is divided into three chapters that repeat the same time frame, from different “command centers”.
Result: a score that folds, twists, replicates. And you tremble.
What it sounds like: the detail that blows up headphones
- Rhythmic motifs that return, change in tone depending on the perspective.
- Subtle electronic textures + insidious strings = tension now, threat later.
- Loaded silences: the absence of music also screams.
- Also: the use of catalog songs that trigger collective memory (yes, names like Phil Collins or Stevie Nicks would appear according to lists) to break the rhythm of the score.
In short: don’t expect grandiose choruses, or pretty melodic balances. Here the melody twists, the tension is tuned-and becomes self-conscious.
Why this soundtrack matters
- ✅ Cohesion with the structure of the film: as it is divided into three parts, the music accompanies this “echo” of the decision that is repeated.
- ✅ Creative freedom: Bigelow lets Bertelmann work “her way.” “Kathryn works with the musician as she works with the actors.”
- ✅ Amplified message: the film doesn’t just talk about the nuclear threat, it talks about pressure, chaos, how decision makers act… and the music gets you in there.
Our fan reading & pop culture
If you go to the movies or watch it on screen and expect an “epic score of great spectacle”… you’ll get something else. But if you let yourself fall into the hole of tension, the ritual of decision and the sound of ticking… then yes: this album (or whatever you hear in the movie) might stay with you.
Bertelmann doesn’t sing you the victory. He sings you the moment before the explosion. And that, if you’re in sync, you feel it a lot.
✅ Express summary:
Ready for disruptive?
Yes → put on your headphones.
No → maybe wait for the next one.
A House of Dynamite
🔻 is no longer “just” a nuclear threat movie
🔺 now it’s a journey of sound and pressure
And its soundtrack… it pressures you.
