A Fire In The Cold Season, soundtrack to rural noir thriller from Newfoundland, Canada, scored by Mat McNerney and Kimmo Helén of the Finnish folk band Hexvessel.
McNerney (Hexvessel, Beastmilk, Grave Pleasures, Carpenter Brut, Me & That Man, ex-Code, ex-DHG) and multi-instrumentalist Helén have collaborated with director Justin Oakey before on a short film, but A Fire In The Cold Season marks their first full feature length soundtrack composition; a wild and evocative cross-pollination of Finnish and Newfoundland spirit. A Fire In The Cold Season is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s western narratives (No Country for Old Men, The Road, Blood Meridian, The Counselor), with a realistic, heavy paced mood where nothing is certain but the promise of despair in a violent world.
McNerney and Helén’s soundtrack is signature ritualistic Hexvessel, straining violins and rustic guitars, but also a new and mature flourish of restraint and minimalist beauty where disparate piano and solemn voices echo through the wilderness. Inspired by Newfoundland folk music, Philipp Glass, Shigeru Umebayashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto, A Fire In The Cold Season is an elegant, romantic and suspenseful score which is as much a homage to the harsh and stunning nature witnessed in Oakey’s visual landscape as Hexvessel’s inherent nature mystic themes.
Fans of Hexvessel’s work will find much to delight in A Fire In The Cold Season’s occult and noirish atmospheres, and new-comers to McNerney and Helén’s work will enjoy being transported from shamanic transcendence to heart-aching romantic mountain melancholy. With an international premiere of A Fire in a Cold Season in Iceland, nominated for a Canadian Screen Award and featured on Netflix internationally, McNerney and Helén creep out from outsider fringes of their humble underground origins to show their looming talents for commanding a vastly evocative and haunting cinematic story.
Released on vinyl in an exclusive run of 250 limited edition signed black LPs and digitally everywhere from 22nd of October 2021
Pre-order it here:
(Could be translated from Finnish)