Junkie XL

Holkenborg’s earlier work included the electronic rock group Nerve. As Junkie XL, he released Saturday Teenage Kick in 1997, bringing distorted textures and forceful vocals into the beat programming. The album belongs to the same broad late-1990s moment as big beat, but its band-like aggression gives it a particular weight.

Those early tracks are worth hearing before approaching the later soundtrack work. The interest in contrast is already there: a dry drum pattern against a huge guitar sound, a voice pushed forward while the electronics keep shifting behind it. Loudness has a dramatic purpose.

His 2002 reworking of Elvis Presley’s A Little Less Conversation took a very different route to a wide audience. It used an existing Presley recording, building a brisk electronic frame around the voice. The appeal lies in how readily that older performance takes to the new rhythm.

Radio JXL: A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin followed in 2003 with a much broader cast of voices. Don’t Wake Up Policeman, credited with Peter Tosh and Friends, brings a reggae connection into that record’s restless broadcast. The credit refers to a recording built around Tosh’s voice; it should not be mistaken for a new session with the late singer.

Holkenborg later developed an extensive screen-composing career, including Mad Max: Fury Road. The scale grew, but the earlier records help explain the transition. His music had long been interested in impact, momentum and the point at which a texture becomes a physical presence. Junkie XL is where that instinct learned to work inside a song or a club track.