Matthew Herbert - Starve Acre

Released: 25/10/24

Matthew Herbert continues his prolific run of soundtrack work with an original score for the acclaimed contemporary British horror filmStarve Acre.

Starve Acre, directed by Daniel Kokotajlo and starring Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark, tells the story of a couple confronting the loss of their child in a remote rural setting. Drawing heavily on folklore and mythology, its foreboding examination of grief, faith and the supernatural demanded a score folding pastoral themes and otherworldly textures into an oppressive yet delicate whole.

Starve Acre OST comes after a noted run of soundtracks by Herbert, which includes acclaimed independent films such as The Wonder, The Cave and the Oscar nominated A Fantastic Woman. It's a minimalist exercise in tension and fragility which matches patient threads of instrumentation with atmospheric sound design ” romantic swells of orchestration pitted against looming low-end pressure and disembodied, unnatural voices helping render the malevolent forces implied throughout the film.

The soundtrack also features two versions of 'Let Me In' ” one sung by Matt Smith, and the other performed by folk and electronics duo Crewdson and Cevanne (Hugh Jones and Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian). The song is an interpretation of 'It Hails, It Rains, It Snows, It Blows', an English folk song dated to the early 20th Century. From the pared-back acoustic lilt of Smith's version to the subtly building ornamentation of Crewdson and Cevanne's interpretation, it's a bewitching finale to the pervasive gloom of the wider score.