HANNAH PEEL shares details of a her new score for Sky's adaptation of John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos - digital out now on Invada Records

HANNAH PEEL

SHARES DETAILS OF HER NEW SCORE

FOR SKY’S ADAPTATION OF JOHN WYNDHAM’S THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS

 

OUT NOW DIGITALLY VIA INVADA RECORDS - VINYL RELEASE TO FOLLOW

 

 

“Like a nursery rhyme reimagined by John Carpenter” - Mark Kermode on The Midwich Cuckoos score

 

“The drama also shows the importance of a distinctive score. Hannah Peel’s music is by turns warm, eerie and incredibly moving.” - Radio Times on The Midwich Cuckoos score

 

 

Composer Hannah Peel has announced details of a new score, The Midwich Cuckoos, created for Sky’s adaption of John Wyndham’s classic science novel of the same name. The Midwich Cuckoos is out now via Invada Records, with a vinyl release to follow later this year: https://lnk.to/DH0JYTrV 

 

Written, performed and produced by Hannah Peel, this new score from the Mercury Music Prize and Emmy nominated Northern Irish artist is a unique and intricately produced sound world, working in harmony with the sound design of Sky’s adaptation.

 

With analogue synthesisers recreating the horror of the ‘Hive Mind’, tape manipulations, drones, woodwind and melodies echoing the song of the cuckoo bird, Peel creates a score that perfectly balances the organic instrumentations and melodies, juxtaposed with an increasingly dark electronic ‘invasion’.

 

Peel goes on to explain, “Creating the score was a constant endeavour to find the balance between darkness and light, fear and beauty. It was a very fine and intricate equilibrium between the normal sunlit logical world as we know it, and a subversive unfamiliar musical language.”

 

The Midwich Cuckoos is an unnerving fable for our turbulent times, a thrilling strange and at times horrifying journey into parenthood. In this new adaptation, Midwich is a small English commuter town, liberal and aspirational, populated by families and affluent streets. A place where nothing much happens - that is until the twilight hours of a summer’s day when a sleepy corner of the town is plunged into panic: https://youtu.be/WCS4v711yck 

 

Hannah Peel is a Northern Irish artist, composer, producer, broadcaster, regularly presenting on the BBC Radio 3 show, Night Tracks and Belfast Music Patron following its City of Music 2021 status by UNESCO. Often inspired by the connections between science and music, her recent recording career includes 2022’s work with the Paraorchestra, The Unfolding, 2021’s Fir Wave; 2016's Awake But Always Dreaming and Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia, scored for synthesisers and a 30 piece colliery brass band.

 

Peel composed and produced the soundtrack for 'Game of Thrones: The Last Watch' which earned her a 2019 Emmy nomination for ‘Outstanding Music Composition For A Documentary Series Or Special (Original Dramatic Score). In 2020 she created the soundtrack for BBC documentary, 'Lee Miller - A Life On The Frontline’ and was awarded an MPG award for her soundtrack production on the 4-part Channel 5/Netflix TV thriller ‘The Deceived’. 

The Midwich Cuckoos tracklisting (cat # INV287)

Hive Mind
Cuckoo
Help Me 
Ward 300
Hive Scream
Seen
Underground
Midwich School
Midwich Cuckoos
The Blackout
Awakenings
Pregnant
Scared
The Keys
If And When
No Leaving
Waking
A Pattern
Come Out