Watershed's cinema curator Mark Cosgrove has described Under The Skin as the best British film he has seen since Nic Roeg was in his prime. But what led established director Jonathan Glazer to choose twenty seven year old genre-crossing experimental musician Mica Levi to score his dark and brooding latest film?

Classically trained Mica, who with her band Micachu & The Shapes writes and performs an idiosyncratic brand of pop-punk songs using home-made instruments and electronic sounds, talks about how she got involved, the experience of scoring her first feature film, the instruments and techniques she used and how she worked alongside Jonathan and sound designer Johnnie Glazer to create the unique sound of the film.

Glazer (Sexy Beast, Birth and music videos for Jamiroquai, Massive Attack and Radiohead) adapted the film from Michael Faber's novel of the same name. Levi's soundtrack uses a mixture of viola, percussion and other real and synthesised sounds, drones and motifs to enhance an already visually audacious, disorientating and uniquely distinctive film.

This Q&A was presented as part of Filmic, Watershed and St George's annual celebration of the creative connections between film and music

Posted on Fri 14 March 2014.

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