Sunday 28 July 2013

Very few times I buy a record because it features in a TV programme... (last time was when I discovered The Eagles had provided the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy theme tune)

However I had to purchase the Mogwai album Les Revenants after becoming hooked on the C4 show The Returned.

The programme is in French with subtitles and involves the dead returning, drowned animals in a lake and a village you cannot leave. It's surreal, eerie, sexy, unsettling and downright confusing.

The soundtrack reflects all of that. From the opening Hungry Face with its chiming xylophone and mournful cello to the more insistent Wizard Motor and its layered sounds this is a really atmospheric instrumental album.

Only one are vocals add to the sound. An odd rendition of what sounds like a hymnal from the deep south of America rather than from France, What Are They Doing In Heaven Today? provides a respite from the overwhelming melancholy provided by the other tracks

A fine album that provides absolutely no answers to the WTF questions raised by the programme but is well worth a listen on its own.

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