Robin Carolan - Werwulf (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) [2LP]

Robin Carolan reunites with director Robert Eggers for Werwulf, a score that drags medieval England out into the moonlight.

After The Northman and Nosferatu, Carolan knows exactly how Eggers likes his worlds built: obsessively researched and deeply unsettling. Werwulf follows a mute peasant in early 14th-century England, cursed to transform under each full moon, and the music grows from the sounds, rituals and beliefs of that period.

Hurdy-gurdies, cimbalom and other archaic instruments are bent through unconventional technique and electronic manipulation. Farm tools including axes, cleavers and scythes were struck against wood and bone for percussion, while bells and clay jugs supply eerie drones. Violinist Daniel Pioro, early-music specialist Laura Cannell and Foals drummer Jack Bevan all contributed. Carolan also ran a string quintet through electronic treatments in sessions he called the Ghost Meditations, and Antonina Nowacka's voice adds a celestial edge. The opening cue "Werwulf" sets the dread early, and "Huntere Moone" and "The Hangynge Oak" keep the chill creeping in.

The centrepiece is "Wynter Waxeth," an original song performed by Ethel Cain in Middle English, earthy and haunted in equal measure. It is a score designed to unnerve, built as much from texture as melody, and it works brilliantly on a dark night with the volume up and the lights off.