At this year’s Cork French Film Festival, Katie Sullivan and band will be expanding their sonic horizons with an original score for the mind-bending 1929 film The Seashell and the Clergyman
I wanted to try and be a bit more organic, but its hard for me to hear everything in real time and not dream time
SOUNDTRACKS FOR imaginary films have long been the conceptual refuge of the electronic music scoundrel seeking to pull a random collection of bleeps together. But the idea of providing soundtracks for films which never had one to begin with, especially performing a live score at a film’s screening, has increased in popularity of late.
From British Sea Power using Robert Flaherty's 1934 film Man Of Aranas inspiration for their album of the same name to Los Angeles punks No Age providing a live soundtrack for Jean- Jacques Annaud's The Bear, new and improvised scores for old flicks have become a box for adventurous acts to tick.
During this year's Cork French Film Festival, Katie Sullivan and her band will join the cast of those who've provided live scores for films. The Waterford native who records and plays as Katie Kim will be providing a score for Germaine Dulac's 1929 work The Seashell and the Clergyman.
"I wasn't familiar with Germaine Dulac at all, so when I saw The Seashell and the Clergyman,I was blown away," says Sullivan. "She was so ahead of her time and the editing is so beautiful and abstract. It's the first time I had seen slow-motion in a silent picture, and it has such an eerie and moving effect."
Putting the score together was a little different to how Sullivan initially thought it would work. “It was quite funny when we all sat down to watch it together and start coming up with ideas. When you see the film, its quite avant garde, and the storyline seems quite open to each individual’s perception, so we were throwing all these ideas around and trying to get various electronic, vocal or acoustic sounds to emulate that. In the end, we decided to just play what’s natural and go with how we feel rather than letting the images dictate us so much.”
Sullivan's previous experience with live scores was as an observer rather than as a participant. "I remember seeing Nosferatuat a cathedral in Waterford with this monster of an organ playing the soundtrack. I also saw Over playing with the original Repo Manplaying behind him at Film Base a year or so ago – just him and deafening noise and Repo Manon stage, and it was spectacular."
Away from the silver screen, Sullivan has plenty going on. The follow-up to her acclaimed Twelvedebut album will be called Cover and Floodand is ready to be released, finances permitting.
“I want to get it pressed on double vinyl as soon as I can, but obviously this takes money, so I’m going to have to wait until the cash is there.
“A few friends have said it’s quite a departure, but I suspect that’s just because I haven’t bombarded everything in reverb this time. I wanted to try and be a bit more organic, but it’s hard for me to hear everything in real time and not dream time so there’s a bit of everything. It’s become my baby. I recorded, produced and mixed it myself, so I’m now quite protective about it.”
Sullivan has also been touring with The Waterboys. "I really fell in love with This Is The Seawhen I was working in the record store back in Waterford so it was a bit bizarre to get Mike's email asking me to be a part of his tribute to Yeats concerts. I jumped at the chance. I'm not a Yeats expert, but I'm getting there. I quite like The White Birds."
The original score for The Seashell and the Clergyman will be performed at The Pavilion, Cork, on March 11
