BSPH: Steve Blackman WWF theme - Drums in the night

Sometimes a wrestling theme is going beyond establishing a character and setting to tone of the event. This is one of such examples.



"Drums in the night" was a second entrance theme for a wrestler Steve Blackman. It is dark and brooding piece that unravels a disturbing imagery. It is a chill out tribal trance composition with very dense percussion parts and tense atmospheric pads. "Drums in the night" was produced by Giles Perring and Nick Cash. The original composition was first released on an album "Rhythmworx" by the label Extreme Music. It was described as dark and dangerous drum drama.

It is also a bad example of a wrestling theme. As an entrance theme it is definitely something completely different especially for the time when it was used. However, in the same time it fails to make a statement and sonically establish a character beyond some cool and unconventional sounds. As in integral part of the wrestling character - the theme must work with the character and that is something "Drums in the night" is not really doing. Which doesn't really mean anything

On its own it is completely different thing. In its original form "Drums in the night" are a trilogy of compositions that share common melodies and rhythmic structure. It really works as an impressionist piece of some foggy jungle swamp full of something wicked that is apparently getting closer. The parts have very distinct sonic landscapes that show very different things throughout its running time.

Part one is more constipated looped jazz fusion stomp that is drowning in a quicksand. Part two is more of a smooth slaughterhouse in a refrigerator. Part three is the most reserved of the three. It lays the dense fog and lets the beasts out to for hunt. Curiously, nothing ever comes out of it probably because those beasts got lost in the fog but the notion of something being there is persistent.