- "I've just always been interested in those glisses," the composer Mica Levi said of glissandos, one of her musical signatures, the tonal slide where sweet can become sour, or, as on her BAFTA-nominated score for Under The Skin, something much worse. They're not as central to her latest film soundtrack, the anime short Delete Beach, but she leaves other recognisable marks. On "Interlude 1," grave strings—not unlike those heard on Under The Skin—heave through simple kick-snare drums and bright synth melodies. Another melody—slightly warmer, no less aglow—is anchored by sleepy piano keys on "Interlude 2." The first track is Kuedo on codeine; the second is more hopeful.
They're of a piece with the Japanese, English and instrumental versions of "Delete Beach." On the first two, we're listening to a young "burner" or "lemming" on the beach lamenting her failure "to join comrades underneath [the ocean], slowly becoming oil over time." (In the film, oil is illegal, but the burners regard it with spiritual awe.) The music undergoes several phases, possibly dictated by the speaker's mood. At first, orchestral strings and sea waves lap gently, then, as she recalls moments from her past, feedback screeches amid cooing synth pads. ("Interlude 2"'s melody reappears shortly after.) Throughout these stark ambient passages, you get a sense of the world the narrator is railing against. Levi mirrors the "defeated" activist's perspective with suggestive contrasts: call-and-response tones, clean and dirty surfaces, high- and low-tech chirps, all shifting in the tides of the ocean the burner hasn't quite reached.
TracklistA1 Delete Beach (Japanese)
A2 Interlude 1
B1 Delete Beach (Instrumental)
C1 Interlude 2
D1 Delete Beach (English)