Talks & Entertainment

Atomic, the new album by Scottish experimental rock legends Mogwai, is composed of reworked versions of the music recorded for the soundtrack to director Mark Cousins’ acclaimed documentary Atomic: Living In Dread and Promise, which first aired on BBC Four last summer.

Constructed entirely of archive film, Atomic is an impressionistic kaleidoscope of the horrors of our nuclear times – protest marches, Cold War sabre-rattling, Chernobyl and Fukishima – but also the sublime beauty of the atomic world, and how x-rays and MRI scans have improved human lives. Mogwai’s soundtrack encapsulates the nightmare of the nuclear age, but its dreamlike qualities, too. It is the latest in the band’s series of impressive soundtracks and scores, following acclaimed albums Les Revenants (The Returned) and Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait.