Album: Under the Skin
Artist: Mica Levi
Released: 2014
Description: The soundtrack to Jonathan Glazer’s sci-fi horror film Under the Skin is abstract, completely alien, and hypnotic. It’s like a long, unblinking stare. The unsteady synth pads, the filtered strings playing their glissandos, the lonely percussion playing on distant downbeats all create a sense of danger; the danger though comes from behind the eyes of a powerful creature looking curiously at a smaller thing, a thing it could kill or destroy with little effort. Sometimes there is a desire behind those eyes. Sometimes that desire is accompanied by what sounds like an indifference to violence when that powerful creature takes that smaller thing. It is a hauntingly beautiful score that manages to be so while remaining understated.
Behind this great score is Mica Levi, known also by her stage name, Micachu, where she fronts her band Micachu and The Shapes. She is an English singer, songwriter, composer, and producer. What she has created is an effective, modern horror score without all the added sound design you currently hear in films. This score is ideal for writing scenes of tension, scenes of desire, and when you want your readers to feel like an active witness to the build up and death of a character at the hands of another in an isolated place.
