Liverpool instrumental rock crew Mugstar have recorded the soundtrack for the film Ad Marginem, which is set for release as a limited edition EP with accompanying film DVD on 11th June. But rather than simply being handed the completed film and told to get on with it, they were instrumental in the creation of the film itself, with the band’s members involved in writing, directing, editing and acting, alongside filmmaker Liam Yates. In a reversal of the usual process, the film was shaped to the music as much as the other way round. Ad Marginem was entirely filmed in and around Merseyside – Hilbre Island and the Sefton coast of Liverpool bay.
You can watch the trailer for the film, which they describe as "tightly controlled and claustrophobic, though not without a supersonic, dark and dense explosiveness, echoing Slint and Pink Floyd", below.
Mugstar’s soundtrack is spare and open, well suited to the dark and bleak aesthetic of the film itself. It arrives in advance of a new Mugstar studio full-length, which will be released in October. The soundtrack’s tracklist runs as follows, and listen to ‘Memorial’ below.
‘Rite I’
‘Memorial’
‘Island – Red’
‘Death Hunter’
‘Memorial (Recapitulation)’
‘Inquisition’
‘Rite II’
