Let’s Eat Grandma, the duo composed of songwriters, multi-instrumentalists and vocalists Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth, have composed an entirely original soundtrack for a new Netflix thriller series, ‘The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself’. The 25 track score is released in full via Transgressive.

Rosa and Jenny said the following of their experience of composing their first ever score for a series: “Working on the OST for ‘The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself’ has certainly been a very informative process and a wonderful new experience which has shaped and broadened the way we write and think about music. We’re always looking for ways to move forward musically, and we think being part of a bigger project with lots of other people all working creatively in different ways has been so valuable and inspiring.”

Colm McCarthy (‘Black Mirror: Black Museum’, ‘The Girl with all the Gifts’), an executive producer and the director of the first four episodes, added: “Let’s Eat Grandma were the first track on the mood playlist that I put together for the show. Joe Barton was a big fan too and we reached out to them while still in the early stages of casting. Even though they had never done a score before it just felt like they would do something original and authentic. Something about the score coming from such young voices feels really cool in this story about the transition from childhood to adulthood. Rosa and Jenny collaborated brilliantly, giving us an amazing score. Emotional, scary, heart-pounding, epic and personal, it is strange and evocative and a huge part of the unique identity of our show. They sculpted with organic, acoustic elements and grungy electronica to make something really magical. It has the DNA of the band running through it but also feels so intrinsic to our world.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I'm a big fan of Let's Eat Grandma, and while this soundtrack has all of the beautiful pop charm of their most recent LP (still a near-constant play on my home stereo), it's interesting to hear their meticulously crafted sound pulled apart into more expansive, cinematic numbers.

TRACK LISTING

1. Half Bad
2. Mouse Feet
3. Money Spiders
4. Don't Pull The Knife Out It Will
5. Only Bleed Quicker
6. Blood Nails
7. Half Bad 2
8. Nathan's Training Theme
9. Trapped In The Washing
10. Machine
11. Annalise & Nathan
12. Romance
13. Half Bad 3
14. Rhythmic Creatures
15. Rhythmic Creatures 2
16. Wanted You To Share It
17. Funeral
18. Kicking Up Dust
19. Jessica's Gift Giving
20. Mercury's Theme
21. Mouse Feet In Paris
22. Nathan & Marcus
23. Kiss & Push
24. Speech Is Silver, Silence Is
25. Golden
26. Magical Recreations Of
27. Murders In The Kitchen
28. Skin Shimmers
29. End Credits

Let’s Eat Grandma released their second album, I’m All Ears, in 2018. It came out to a blaze of critical glory, thrilled fans who’d been with them since I, Gemini, and won them interested new listeners as they widened their musical scope. They won Album of the Year at the Q Awards along with many end of year list placements, toured relentlessly, played a life-changing set at Coachella, and then… they disappeared.

​​Two Ribbons tells the story of the last three years from both Jenny and Rosa’s points of view. As a body of work, it is astonishing: a dazzling, heart-breaking, life-affirming and mortality-facing record that reveals their growing artistry and ability to parse intense feeling into lyrics so memorable you’d scribble them on your backpack. The band has been through a lot in the last three years, and Two Ribbons is the artefact that signals some kind of progression out of distressing times; a story of loss, change, and of survival; a proof of life.

Such was the intensity of Jenny and Rosa’s bond that when they promoted their first album, they positioned themselves as twins. Friends since early childhood, they had graduated into a teenage friendship that was unbreakable and practically telepathic. Those intense and all-consuming friendships are subject to the same ebbs and flows as any other, and as they grew older the two began to find themselves as individuals, tastes differing here, reactions jarring there. There was a time when both felt a little trapped, and needed to fight to create the space to express themselves as individuals within their relationship.

And so the partnership began to fray. Two Ribbons can be heard as a series of letters between the two of them, taking the place of conversations as they try to make sense of the rift in their relationships. It’s a cathartic blood-letting and a devastating realisation about the fickleness of life. Though it is still very much a Let’s Eat Grandma album, for the first time there are Rosa’s songs and Jenny’s songs.

Both Rosa and Jenny found themselves more involved in the production of this album, experimenting with new sounds and diverse instrumentations within the studio, collaborating with David Wrench, also the primary producer of I’m All Ears. On this record Rosa in particular threw herself into the behind the scenes work and driving her own sonic agenda, whilst Jenny sought to synthesise new influences to forge new spaces artistically for the group.

The backdrop to Two Ribbons is two women navigating their way through a lot, for the first time without the tiller of each other to guide them. The songs they wrote and eventually brought to each other are little pockets of light in the darkness, signals in the night to show each other how they were feeling and what they had lost.

Two Ribbons is an album that treads a fine line expressing the most intimate feelings of, whilst making space for, the different perspectives of two women; an album that says this is not the beginning or the end but part of a never-ending circle. It’s cyclical in nature; there is sadness, and pain, and joy, and hope – and knows that no matter what detours we take, we are all connected.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I've definitely got a bit of a thing for synths, this much I know. I've also historically loved all sorts of synth music but particularly 80's tinged pop, I loved the Kristen Kontrol LP some years ago, Christine & The Queens AND Georgia, and 'Two Ribbons' has echoes of all the above while retaining the weird avant-pop moments that made their first couple LP's such a different prospect. Big, bold melody-focused anthems.

TRACK LISTING

Happy New Year
Levitation
Watching You Go
Hall Of MirrorsInsect Loop
Half Light
Sunday
In The Cemetery
Strange Conversations
Two Ribbons