Les Revenants
The sound of a band you thought you knew really well playing to strengths they don’t display enough, and one or two you never knew they had.
Mogwai, who have explored death and horror imagery in their music since the beginning and have written scores to Zidane and Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, were long overdue to write music for a project like Les Revenants, their score for the French TV series based on the 2004 film of the same name.
Mogwai's soundtrack for French zombie TV show Les Revenants is an exercise in wilful self-control and restraint, with their customary feedback-driven walls of guitar noise de-emphasised in favour of delicate instrumentation built from piano and organ, strings, washed-out synth tones, glockenspiel and softly-brushed drums. The result is almost painfully beautiful, with descending minor-chord melodies dominating, lending the whole suite a tragic, elegiac tone that no doubt suits the source material.
Back in February this year, composer Clint Mansell told London's The Guardian that film scores and post-rock were becoming interchangeable.