Let Me In by traceythorn

Set in a girls school in the late sixties, ‘The Falling’ is acclaimed director Carol Morley’s (Dream of a Life, The Alcohol Years) atmospheric debut feature film, which garnerned rave 5-star reviews in the Guardian and the Times when it premiered at the London Film Festival in September 2014.

The soundtrack is dominated by eight songs and sketches by Tracey Thorn gathered together on a new 17-minute EP - Songs from The Falling - released on Strange Feeling Records.

Written after consultation with Morley to fit the film’s mood and themes Thorn’s music was inspired by one the central scenes in which several girls form the ‘Alternative School Orchesta’ and jam listlessly on instruments left lying around in the music room.

‘Carol sent me a cardboard box full of the instruments they used - the typical things you’d expect, wood-block, tambourine, triangle, recorder - and I decided to use the scene as a springboard for my songs,’ says Tracey.

Recorded in the north London home studio she shares with her partner Ben Watt (who engineered the recordings), Thorn added guitar and piano, wrote the songs and then - playing everything herself - allowed herself one take only on each of the instruments. ‘I wanted to leave in all timing discrepancies to try and capture the loose freeform feel of an untutored school performance,’ she adds. The final mixes were done by Bruno Ellingham.

Part folk, part minimal garage band, the music’s gauzy simplicity harks back to Tracey’s cult debut album ‘A Distant Shore’ (1982).

‘The Falling’ movie is out in cinemas from April 24.