Review: â€˜Hunger Games’ soundtrack leaves listeners sated

Recorded as if in a humid forest just after midnight, the soundtrack to “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 1� is an immersive experience, one overwrought enough to darken candlelit teenage bedrooms but deep enough to reward more advanced exploration. Filled with echoed, synthetic rhythms, a maximalist’s love of multitrack recording and a warm vibe, the 14 songs on “Mockingjay� were selected by the New Zealand artist Lorde, and her striking aesthetic is all over it.

In fact, the collection runs like a particularly excellent goth-dance mix tape, one featuring new music from Lorde, Scottish synth-poppers Chvrches, rising R&B hit maker Tinashe, Kanye West (who remixes Lorde) and others. Like the best of such collections, it connects enough dots to leave a listener sated and educated when it’s over.

Like the two other such soundtracks, “Mockingjay� harnesses current acts to convey the film’s dystopian themes, and that grim drama apparently requires lots of echo. It’s all over Lorde’s excellent “Yellow Flicker Beat,� a track that starts quiet before finding a rhythmic dance floor momentum. West inverts the work on a remade version called simply “Flicker,� which ditches beat in favor of bleak atmospherics.

Unlike the previous installment, which included guitar-based acts such as Coldplay, Imagine Dragons and Patti Smith, “Mockingjay� is nearly devoid of old-school instruments. Rather, it exists within a continuum that rejects a reliance on six strings and a human drummer, connecting the freak-funky dance floor pioneer Grace Jones with synth-pop heroes Duran Duran (Simon LeBon sings on Charlie XCX’s standout track “Kingdom�) and mid-’90s proto-EDM producers Chemical Bros. with present-day inheritors who propel beat-based pop music in new directions.

Other standouts include Bat for Lashes’ cover of “Plan the Escape,� a beguiling song written by the artist known as Son Lux. Featuring a bold, wobbly bass line and headphone-happy rhythms that jump channels and create dizziness, the version suggests Kate Bush as filtered through a bank of analog synths. Jones’ “Original Beast� thrives on the back of conga polyrhythms, a weird reggae groove and a menacing synthetic bass-line.

On “This Is Not a Game,� the Chemical Brothers team with San Pedro R&B seducer Miguel to build a banger that starts noisy but drops into a clean, futuristic groove that suggests Kraftwerk’s robots gone bad. It’s a feeling that stretches across the soundtrack, a pessimism foreshadowing that the path forward, filled as it is with potential, just might lead into quicksand.

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Various Artists

Original soundtrack to “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 1�

(Republic Records)

Three stars (out of four)