Ralfe Band

'Bunny and the Bull' cd/lp

Ghost Ship Records

Digital release 7 December 2009
CD release 18 January 2010

Distribution by PIAS

The film Bunny and the Bull is released in cinemas nationwide on 27 November 2009

An extraordinary visual feast from the director of The Mighty Boosh,  featuring the crème-de-la-crème of British comedy talent, including Noel Fielding, Julian Barrett and Richard Ayoade,

BUNNY AND THE BULL is a comedy road movie set entirely in a flat. 

Stephen (Edward Hogg), hasn’t been outside for months.  Living with a painfully restrictive routine, he finds his mind hurtling back to a disastrous trek around Europe he undertook with his friend Bunny (Simon Farnaby), a womanising, gambling-addicted booze-hound.  Stephen’s flat becomes the springboard for an extraordinary odyssey through landscapes made up of snapshots and souvenirs.  A story of love, disillusionment, stuffed bears and globalised seafood, Bunny and the Bull is an offbeat and heartfelt journey to the end of the room. 

Written and directed by Paul King (director, The Mighty Boosh; associate director, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace).   A Warp X / Film 4 production.   Bunny and The Bull premiered at Toronto and London Film Festivals.

Utterly captivating...a comic delight... one of the films of the year   The Times *****

The soundtrack – Notes by Oly Ralfe

The film creates its own unique visual world, so I also aimed to create a similarly self-contained soundtrack.  The music is meant to have a magical, unreal quality, like the film itself. 

The soundtrack was recorded in remote countryside during the heavy snowfall in January 2009.  We were pretty much snowed in, with deer wandering in the garden and ice everywhere.  This all helped with the special atmosphere of creating this work. 

Piano sounds feature heavily.  There’s a dusty, archaic kind of look to some scenes, which suited an old piano sound.  We had this old, broken piano in the room we were recording in, and we ended up just banging and tapping its insides to create the atmospheric, darker sounds.  And then I recorded the melodic pieces on another piano.  There are folk and gypsy influenced pieces  with mandolin and accordion, viola when the film visits Poland and Spain.  Electronic pieces for some scenes, and some almost classical pieces with string sections.  It’s a road trip, and our music has different ingredients, so we were able to draw on that depending on where they were in Europe. 

We wanted the soundtrack to be heard and enjoyed in its own right.  So having finished work on the film itself we carried on and produced this soundtrack album. 

 
The soundtrack – Notes by Paul King (writer & director, Bunny & the Bull)
On the coldest day of the year, when public transport had given up on the south of England, I drove out to Oxford to meet Ralfe Band.  They were recording in the living room of their largely unheated house – but had left the piano out in the snow because they wanted it to have a more degraded sound.  I’d met them through the Boosh but all I really knew was that they looked good sharing a jumper in Old Gregg.   Certainly they seemed to match the home-made spirit of the film, but watching your composers literally weather their instruments is enough to panic the most trusting of directors.  

And then they played - and it was simply great. They were the best of collaborators. I'd made suggestions of where I wanted music and given them vague references. They'd completely ignored me, done their own thing, and I never wanted to change a note. It would be absurdly arrogant to say it was just as I imagined it. If I could imagine music like that I would never have picked up a camera. It's blindingly, blisteringly, barnstormingly better than I could ever have imagined -and the one thing about the film I would never, ever want to change.

About Ralfe Band

Ralfe Band is the brain child of songwriter and composer Oliver Ralfe and drummer, guitarist and arranger Andrew Mitchell.   They have released two studio albums - Swords (Skint, 2005) and Attic Thieves (Loose, 2008).

The band have toured the UK and Europe and played at many festivals including Glastonbury, Reading & Leeds and The Big Chill.    

Their music has been praised for its cinematic qualities. Being asked to compose a feature film soundtrack has been an exciting next step for the band and a chance to experiment.  Says Oly Ralfe,

‘I have always been inspired by film music.  Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack for Once Upon A Time in The West, Bernard Herrman’s score for Vertigo.  The music of Emir Kustirica films like Underground.  David Lynch’s Mullholland Drive and Neil Young’s soundtrack to Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch.   Theatrical music like Tom Waits, songs for opera, The Black Rider by Robert Wilson.   Not forgetting Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Wizard of Oz.  Creating a film soundtrack was a great way to make music outside the album format’

 The soundtrack features Ralfe Band regulars –

Oliver Ralfe - piano, keyboards, guitar, vocals, percussion
Andrew Mitchell - drums, percussion, guitar
John Greswell - viola, violin, mandolin, string arrangements and mixing
Nick Fowler - electric and bass guitar.
Garo Nahoulakian - electric and bass guitar
Rowland Prytherch - bass guitar and recording engineer

Guest musicians –

Pete Wareham (of Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear) - saxophones
Andy Mellon (of Bellowhead) trumpet
Matthew Greswell, cello

Praise for Ralfe Band

Cinematic psychedelia. Menacing gypsies who might just steal you away.  PLAN B

One can imagine much of it accompanying the work of David Lynch: there's an uneasy surrealism about it, a sense that despite all the pretty melodies, something nasty lurks within.  THE GUARDIAN

A whiskey soured folk trip, from east to west...Ralfe's moon-eyed beauty is simply the work of one vivid imagination.  MOJO ****

Ralfe Band are one of my favourite beat groups right now, and their records take you on a weird and wonderful journey to their own little wonderland.   MARK RADCLIFFE in MUSIC WEEK

Oly Ralfe makes playful, well-crafted tunes that breath new life into forgotten ways of doing things... Treasures hidden in amongst the rafters, waiting to be found.  THE QUIETUS

An inspired set of star-gazing psychedelia.   METRO ****

www.ralfeband.com
www.bunnyandthebull.com