Bunch Of Fives: Amelia Coburn

Photo By Ellen Dixon

With the release of her new single, I Just Want To Say, Teesside folk artist Amelia Coburn offers a deliciously dark first taste of her newly announced second album, Myself and Other Monsters, due on 5th March 2027. Inspired by the phenomenon of hybristophilia, the single adopts the voice of a woman writing love letters to a serial killer, blurring the line between romance, fascination, and obsession with the gothic storytelling that has become Amelia’s trademark.

Opening like a medieval fever dream, I Just Want To Say slowly unfurls from Amelia’s enchanting vocal and shuffling rhythms into something far grander and more sinister. Cinematic in scope, it twists through unexpected turns before culminating in a dramatic, string-laden finale that wouldn’t sound out of place in a classic horror film. Crisp production from Bill Ryder-Jones and another captivating vocal performance from Amelia make for an irresistible introduction to what promises to be a fascinating second album.

Here, Amelia tells us about her top five horror movie soundtracks…

1. Suspiria – Goblin
Goblin’s score is such an integral part of Suspiria that I’m not sure I’d love the film half as much without it. It’s equal parts childlike and nightmarish, and I love that contrast so much – if I had to describe the sound of my Myself and Other Monsters, it would be the space between the beautiful and the grotesque. I used the title track from Suspiria as my walk-on music on my last tour. It starts with a little glockenspiel melody that could almost belong to a children’s TV programme, until the strange whispering, drums and synthesizers come in and everything takes a rather sinister turn. It helps me set the scene for my gigs. The film ended up influencing my new album visually too, particularly Argento’s iconic palette of lurid primary colours.

2. The Wicker Man – Paul Giovanni /Magnet
When listening to this soundtrack in isolation, there’s very little to tell you that it scores a horror film. Most of it sounds like a gig night at your local village pub: folk songs, drunk singalongs, bawdy lyrics, people generally having a merry old time. (Unfortunately, Edward Woodward does not have such a merry old time). I think the juxtaposition between the cheerful music and what plays out on screen is what makes the film so disturbing. Songs like Corn Rigs and Gently Johnny make Summerisle feel like a real place with its own musical storytelling traditions.
What I struggle to get my head round is that most of the songs were written specifically for the film by an American. When I first watched it I presumed they were centuries-old Celtic ballads. I sometimes cover ‘Willow’s Song’ live, and there’s definitely a bit of The Wicker Man influence on my album track It Burns. I took inspiration from Fire Leap and all its talk of pagan ritual, fertility, lust and setting things on fire. All the good stuff.

3. Psycho – Bernard Herrmann
It feels like an obvious choice to put Psycho on this list, but there’s a reason it has one of the most famous scores ever written. It’s perfect! I used to play it in the morning while getting ready for university because it made me work considerably faster and also discouraged any lingering in the shower. One of my favourite experiences was watching this film at the Glasshouse in Gateshead, where they had the Royal Northern Sinfonia playing the score live. Goosebumps!

I love that Herrmann restricted himself to just using strings and yet still managed to create so much unease with them. There’s the frantic repetition of the opening titles, the ominous passages underneath the quieter scenes when Marion Crane flees in the car and, obviously, those menacing violins in the shower scene. He takes an instrument we associate with romance and beauty and makes it sound horrifying. I thought about that quite a lot while making my new record. On my latest single I Just Want To Say the violins are quite violent in the way they scratch and shriek. A little nod to Herrmann, my favourite film composer.

4. Rosemary’s Baby – Krzysztof Komeda
I’ve also had my band walk onstage to the lullaby from Rosemary’s Baby, sung by Mia Farrow over the opening credits. It’s such a strange way to begin a horror film – her voice is incredibly soft and close, accompanied by this delicate melody that sounds like a nursery rhyme, but the harpsichord countermelody lets you know that there is trouble ahead.
There’s a lullaby on the new record called Invisible People, sung to a neighbour’s baby that the narrator hears crying through the wall every night but has never actually seen. I was drawn to the same kind of domestic horror as Rosemary’s Baby, and to the fact that Komeda’s score rarely tries to frighten you outright. Parts of his score are oddly jazzy, playful even. Like Giovanni’s work on The Wicker Man, Komeda understands that music accompanying something horrible doesn’t necessarily have to sound horrible itself. Sometimes it’s spookier when it doesn’t.

5. Donnie Darko – Michael Andrews/various artists
This one might technically be cheating, because I know some people wouldn’t call Donnie Darko a horror film. BUT it’s set around Halloween and features a terrifying human-sized rabbit informing people when the world is going to end, so I reckon it qualifies.

I’ve listened to this OST endlessly over the years. It’s quite sparse compared to the other albums I’ve chosen for this list, made up largely of piano, synths and drones. Tracks like Manipulated Living have this surreal suspended quality that perfectly suits a film that exists in a weird liminal space, where time bends and you’re never entirely sure what is real, dreamt or hallucinated. I used to fall asleep with the soundtrack playing through my headphones, which occasionally meant being jolted awake by one of its more intense moments.

There’s not just the original score, but the songs used in the soundtrack too. The Killing Moon over the opening sequence is perfect, both musically and lyrically: “fate up against your will…” I especially love Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears, which Richard Kelly built an entire scene around. The songs and music from this soundtrack do almost as much storytelling as the camera does.