Cat's Eyes - The Duke Of Burgundy (2015)

Cat’s Eyes Return With Soundtrack To Peter Strickland’s New Film ‘The Duke Of Burgundy’ Out 16th February 2015. Musical duo Cat’s Eyes have written and recorded the soundtrack for the esteemed British director Peter Strickland’s new film ‘The Duke Of Burgundy’, set for release 16th February on RAF and Caroline Records. The film, starring Borgen’s Sidse Babett Knudson and Chiara D’Anna, will be released in UK cinemas on 20th February.

A statement from Faris Badwan from Cat’s Eyes on the making of the soundtrack:

“Like many other musicians, Rachel and I have always had aspirations towards working on film soundtracks - so we were happy when Peter trusted us to write the score for his incredible film.

Working on the film, the narrative was already there and we had to write music tailored towards it. Long before any filming, we read the script and began writing music based on individual characters and themes. Once they had started filming, the director began sending us references. In some cases the scenes were filmed to temp music and the director wanted us to create the same atmosphere with our pieces. In one of the major scenes the director had been using the Mozart Requiem as temp music and everyone involved had become attached to it. He decided towards the end of the process that he wanted us to replace it, and Rachel ended up writing and arranging a full choral requiem the evening before the deadline.

We were writing for the director and the film rather than ourselves and in some ways that was sort of liberating. We had specific scenes to follow and subtle movements to draw attention to… it was very different to making a normal album. In the process, we must have watched the film hundreds of times…and we still like it. We were lucky in that the script was really great and there were some extremely memorable characters to work with.”

Cat's Eyes are Rachel Zeffira and Faris Badwan. The pair formed in 2010 and played their first ever show during afternoon mass at St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. They released their self-titled debut album the following year to widespread acclaim. In 2012 Italian-Canadian soprano Zeffira released her critically praised solo album 'The Deserters' on her and Badwan's own label RAF Records.

Peter Strickland is one of the UK's most exciting new film-makers. His 2009 Hungarian-language feature debut ‘Katalin Varga’ won a Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution at the Berlin Film Festival, and last year's ‘Berberian Sound Studio’ starring Toby Jones won three British Independent Film Awards including Best Director for Strickland.