Spidermilk opens with Eddie Stover and his business partner, Sylvia, riding on an elevated maglev train through a future version of Philadelphia. Through the windows they gaze upon a mixture of gaudy lights and burned desolation. Lon Sarver, in the editing comments for Spidermilk, mentioned imagining Vangelis playing during this scene. The notion got me thinking. What would a soundtrack be like for the novel?

Joy Division came to my thoughts. Perhaps the band’s bleak, strange magic reminded me of the mood I was trying to create, a sense of horror within urban decay. I remember watching a documentary about the band, and one member described the crushingly dismal setting of post-war Manchester, living for years without seeing trees. But maybe I was reminded of Ian Curtis’ seizures. Eddie Stover suffers from seizures brought on by a brain implant, a black market device used to block out a particularly traumatic memory. Eddie must either endure the seizure side-effect, or live with the constant recollection of his horrific past. Curtis faced the prospect of crushing depression as a medication side-effect or dangerous seizures without the medication.
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