That scene. The masks. The chanting. If you’ve seen Eyes Wide Shut, you remember it. Not the plot, not the dialogue. That music. It gets inside your head and stays there like a splinter.
Here’s what most people don’t know. The song is a Romanian Greek-Orthodox chant. Jocelyn Pook took it, remastered it for her 1997 album Deluge, and Kubrick heard it and knew immediately. He used it for the masked ball sequence, the most uncomfortable, most hypnotic scene in the entire film.
The trick? The vocal track is reversed. The original text is in Romanian, but you’ll never make out the words because they’re playing backwards. That’s what gives it that otherworldly, ritualistic feel. It sounds like a language you almost recognise but can’t quite place. Your brain keeps trying to decode it and failing. Kubrick knew exactly what he was doing.
The original piece was called “Backwards Priests,” a reference to the church turning a blind eye to abuse. Heavy subject, fitting title. The folk melody underneath is “Pe-al nostru steag e scris Unire,” “On our flag is written Unity.” A traditional Romanian song, adapted by the Kronos Quartet for Pook’s recording.
I first watched Eyes Wide Shut at about sixteen. Too young to understand half of it, old enough to feel that music in my bones. That chanting during the masked ball scene, it’s primal. Deep. The kind of sound that makes you check over your shoulder even though you’re sitting alone in your living room.
Not metal in the traditional sense. But if you think about what metal does at its best, creating atmosphere through tension, darkness, and refusal to comfort the listener, then Jocelyn Pook’s work belongs in the conversation.
Play it in the dark. With headphones. See what happens.
