Anyone who's been absorbed by the bizarre pop brilliance of THE RALFE BAND'S two studio albums 'Swords' (2005) and 'Attic Thieves' (2008) can't fail to have been struck by the cinematic qualities inherent in the off-kilter composing talents of Oly Ralfe and his chief collaborator Andrew Mitchell. So it's not too great a leap of faith to imagine them conjuring up striking music for a feature film should the opportunity arise.
And opportunity has indee arisen courtesy of Paul King, probably better known to you as the director of 'The Mighty Boosh'. Keen to supply the perfect soundtrack to his new “road movie set in a flat” 'Bunny and the Bull', he sought out Messrs. Ralfe and Mitchell in an unheated house in Oxford in the middle of winter where there was ice and snow everywhere and deer wandering in and out.
Ideal, thought an undaunted King, and his faith is largely rewarded by the resulting 'Bunny and the Bull' OST: a primarily instrumental, but hugely evocative experience which works pretty well even in isolation from the screen-related brief Ralfe and Mitchell were working to.
Pianos and to a lesser extent the time of year the music was recorded play essential parts in the way 'Bunny and the Bull' sounds. Ralfe Band had an old broken piano in the room they were recording and its' atmospheric sound frames many of the album;s best tracks, from the oddball, Lawrence-of-Arabia-meets-spy-theme lilt of 'Bunny and the Bull Theme' to the discordant, avant garde-ish outing of 'Shut Inside'. 'Stephen', meanwhile, perfectly captures the wintry, snowbound loneliness enveloping the band while they were recording and you can almost feel your breath coming back at you while you're listening.
Elsewhere, some of the pieces (there's only a couple of 'songs' as such, the most notable being the inebriated country-folk two-step 'Fiesta Song') perfectly capture the film's European spectrum. Some of the action apparently takes place in Spain and Poland and both countries are strongly evoked thanks to tracks like 'Cocktails' (where vibrato guitar and tumbling piano combine to conjure images of a Spanish sunset) and 'Atlantis Rising', where a madcap gypsy carnival chase more than fulfills its' Eastern (European) promise.
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Perhaps inevitably, some of the tracks (there are 19 tracks in 42 minutes) are little more than thumbnails (throbbing strings and piano for 'Eloisa', tambourines, shakers and rolling drums for the ultra-brief 'Meachanical Bull') though there are a few occasions where you'd love to hear the promise of the piece fully coming to fruition. With its' ramped-up drama and sweetly struck cowbells, 'Crab Eating' seems to have much more to say than its' 1 minute 23 seconds allows, while the smudged and fragile 'Snow Climb' reminds of the Tindersticks' 'Cherry Blossoms' in atmosphere and again deserves to be developed further.
At the time of writing, this writer hasn't had the opportunity to marry soundtrack with visuals, but its' premise (I can envisage a surreal European 'Withnail & I' of sorts) and cast – Boosh's co-stars Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding appear as well as Sylvia Sims(!) - suggest it's well worth seeking out. Even without the benefit of the screen, though, its' soundtrack acquits itself admirably. I wouldn't be surprised to find Messrs. Ralfe and Mitchell working in this field more in the future.
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