When he's not fronting the Horrors, Faris Badwan keeps busy with the vintage pop of Cat's Eyes, a project he shares with Canadian soprano Rachel Zeffira. The two have long been attached to the soundtrack for British director Peter Strickland's new film, The Duke of Burgundy, and today we get our first proper taste of that project.
The release's title track is a warm, gentle track complete with lush, regal instrumentation and Zeffira's timeless vocals.
Speaking with The Quietus, who premiered the track, Badwan offered the following lengthy statement about their recording process:
Like many other musicians, Rachel and I have always had aspirations towards working on film soundtracks - so we were happy when Peter trusted us to write the score for his incredible film. Working on the film, the narrative was already there and we had to write music tailored towards it. Long before any filming, we read the script and began writing music based on individual characters and themes. Once they had started filming, Peter began sending us references. In some cases the scenes were filmed to temp music and Peter wanted us to create the same atmosphere with our pieces. In one of the major scenes Peter had been using Mozart's Requiem as temp music and everyone involved had become attached to it. He decided towards the end of the process that he wanted us to replace it, and Rachel ended up writing and arranging a full choral requiem the evening before the deadline. We were writing for Peter and the film rather than ourselves and in some ways that was sort of liberating. We had specific scenes to follow and subtle movements to draw attention to… it was very different to making a normal album. In the process, we must have watched the film hundreds of times… and we still like it. We were lucky in that the script was really great and there were some extremely memorable characters to work with.
Listen to "The Duke of Burgundy" below via The Quietus. The film's soundtrack is set to arrive on February 16 via RAF/Caroline Records.
The release's title track is a warm, gentle track complete with lush, regal instrumentation and Zeffira's timeless vocals.
Speaking with The Quietus, who premiered the track, Badwan offered the following lengthy statement about their recording process:
Like many other musicians, Rachel and I have always had aspirations towards working on film soundtracks - so we were happy when Peter trusted us to write the score for his incredible film. Working on the film, the narrative was already there and we had to write music tailored towards it. Long before any filming, we read the script and began writing music based on individual characters and themes. Once they had started filming, Peter began sending us references. In some cases the scenes were filmed to temp music and Peter wanted us to create the same atmosphere with our pieces. In one of the major scenes Peter had been using Mozart's Requiem as temp music and everyone involved had become attached to it. He decided towards the end of the process that he wanted us to replace it, and Rachel ended up writing and arranging a full choral requiem the evening before the deadline. We were writing for Peter and the film rather than ourselves and in some ways that was sort of liberating. We had specific scenes to follow and subtle movements to draw attention to… it was very different to making a normal album. In the process, we must have watched the film hundreds of times… and we still like it. We were lucky in that the script was really great and there were some extremely memorable characters to work with.
Listen to "The Duke of Burgundy" below via The Quietus. The film's soundtrack is set to arrive on February 16 via RAF/Caroline Records.
