front-album Starred Up Film Music Reworked is a new and expanded revision of the uneasy and evocative score and soundscape for the award-winning film Starred Up by director David Mackenzie (Young Adam, Hallam Foe, Perfect Sense). Created by Mackenzie in collaboration with renowned producer Tony Doogan (Mogwai, Belle & Sebastian, Teenage Fanclub), and featuring contributions from Belle & Sebastian keyboardist Chris Geddes, actor and musician Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting, Snowpiercer), and saxophonist and music professor Raymond MacDonald (GIO) and Film Maker David Mackenzie.

Read the Skinny interview

It will be released on limited-edition vinyl available through select record stores and this website and as an iTunes download on November 6, 2015 via fledgling label Good Grace.

If you have 5 minutes just take a breath and put the day on pause and have a listen to this because I think it may well have restorative powers – Steve Lamacq BBC 6 Music 23/9/15

I’m always waiting for something I suppose which sort of stops you in your tracks slightly and this I have to say was something of a showstopper yesterday when I listened to it. Steve Lamacq BBC 6 Music 23/9/15

Side One

  1. PREPARING FOR WAR
  2. ABANDONMENT
  3. CROSSING THE LINE
  4. BACK ON THE WING
  5. DUNKING
  6. RESPITE/PARADISE

Side Two

  1. VIOLENCE
  2. BETWEEN THESE WALLS
  3. TOP DOG
  4. BACK ON THE WING
  5. SOME KIND OF REDEMPTION
  6. CREDIT
  7. CELL THIEF



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” pic to the extreme a really great, great piece of music – Vic Galloway, BBC ”

“The score was designed to sit almost imperceptibly in the film as a bed of sound which merged into the prison atmospheres. For the album, we wanted to expand from this to create something that held onto those flavours but that had a life of its own and this is the result. I think it has a strong sense of drama and sometimes is even quite scary, but is also very dreamy and evocative.” – David Mackenzie

record-label“David and I share a good appetite for anarchic little collaborations, we’ve enjoyed a few over the years and so I was keen to take up his invitation to make a response to one of his compositions. I’m always compelled to find an opportunity for subversion so I threw a gentle glockenspiel into his dark disquiet.” – Ewen Bremner

Good Grace RecordsThe name comes from a t-shirt for an obscure rehab outfit found at a thrift store in Louisiana. Department Odd is also the home of Good Grace music publishing.

Alternative take of Credit (YouTube EMBED code)

 Contact: us@departmentodd.com

The Tristan Da Cunha Project

A few years ago I visited Tristan Da Cunha which is considered to be the most remote inhabited island on earth. This tiny volcanic island in the middle of the South Atlantic is home to just under 300 people who live in a village called Edinburgh Of The Seven Seas. Tristan is a unique and special place but both the architecture and the way of life have echoes with remote Scottish crofting communities – perhaps a result of the influence of the first settler William Glass of Kelso, Scotland.

I shot some research footage while there which we cut into a short film of personal impressions and screened at SXSW with a live score by members of Shearwater http://shearwatermusic.com. We recorded this and put it on the cut. I hope to return the edit sometime to re-explore the material, but this is the current version with the music attached.

There is a plan to return to Tristan to make a dramatic film. This hasn’t happened yet because of the logistical challenges of its extreme remoteness and me being distracted by other projects.

Scarecrows and Lighthouses

Although not a Department Odd project directly, this is an ongoing collaboration between artist Martin Boyce (Turner Prize winner 2012) musician Raymond MacDonald and myself.

We had a show Part One, Scarecrows in Tramway, Glasgow and this is a record of the show.

We are currently working on a limited edition of chairs that we designed and plan to do a number of shows incorporating them.