Atomic
Atomic, the new album by Scottish experimental rock legends Mogwai, is composed of reworked versions of the music recorded for the soundtrack to director Mark Cousin's acclaimed documentary Atomic: Living In Dread and Promise, which first aired on BBC Four last summer. Constructed entirely of archive film, Atomic is an impressionistic kaleidoscope of the horrors of our nuclear times – protest marches, Cold War sabre-rattling, Chernobyl and Fukishima – but also the sublime beauty of the atomic world, and how x-rays and MRI scans have improved human lives. Mogwai's soundtrack encapsulates the nightmare of the nuclear age, but its dreamlike qualities too. It is the latest in the band's series of impressive soundtracks and scores, following acclaimed albums Les Revenants (The Returned) and Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait. Cousins says of Atomic, the film: "I'm a child of the nuclear age, and in my teens I had nightmares about the bomb. But physics was my favorite subject in school, and I nearly studied it at university. Learning about the atomic world excited me. It was like abstract Star Wars." Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite says: "The Atomic soundtrack is one of the most intense and fulfilling projects we've taken on as a band. Ever since we went to Hiroshima to play and visited the peace park this has been a subject very close to us. The end results, both the film score and the record are pieces I'm extremely proud of."
Mogwai's latest full-length is technically a soundtrack, featuring reworked material from their musical contributions to a BBC 4 documentary on the atomic age.
As a band, Mogwai has evolved at the same pace as its songs. No single Mogwai record can be classified as a massive sonic shift for the band. Rather, new instruments, themes, and styles emerge on select tracks, only to appear down the line in a more fleshed-out manner. Analog sounds, for example, have bubbled up in…
The Glaswegian group have turned in some of their best work when operating within a soundtrack format, but how does their score for nuclear age documentary Atomic: Living in Dread hold up against past successes?
In their own ways, Zidane and Les Revenants are some of Mogwai's finest work, so it makes sense that Atomic -- an album based on their music for the BBC 4 documentary Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise and their first release after the departure of John Cummings -- follows suit.
Find yourself a quiet space: Mogwai's ninth album, the soundtrack to Mark Cousins' docufilm Atomic, demands and deserves the listener’s complete attention.
A good soundtrack will take you back to a certain scene from a movie as soon as you hear it, but a great soundtrack sounds good whether or n...
If any group can provide the soundtrack to a film about the nuclear age, it's Mogwai.