1. THE DROVER’S WIFE: THE LEGEND OF MOLLY JOHNSON

Writer/director/star Leah Purcell takes a well-known Australian tale and twists it to her own radical ends in this subversive Outback Western. Along with Mark Wareham’s eye-catching cinematography, the film is lent emotional/locational oomph by a terrific score from Salliana Seven Campbell which lifts the movie to a higher plain, transcending its low-budget limitations. Hailing from a folk background, composer and multi-instrumentalist Campbell makes her feature debut with this arresting work, which marks her as a film composer to watch. Expect great things in the future.

2. THE QUIET GIRL

This brilliantly low-key feature debut from Colm Bairéad is one of the real treats of 2022 — a humanist gem that has something of the magic of Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman. It also has breathtakingly beautiful music by Stephen Rennicks, who sent us a couple of unmixed cues to preview on Scala in advance of a full soundtrack release.

Rennicks’ impressive CV includes gems like Frank and Room, but this is one of his most affecting scores, perfectly capturing the lyrical coming-ofage motifs of the movie.

3. BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

If you go looking for the score for this Juliette Binoche starrer under its English-language title, you won’t get very far. But tracks from Mathieu Lamboley’s ‘Ouistreham (Bande originale du film)’ have been going down a storm on Scala, rich in minimalist musical cycles that recall the hypnotic ambience of Philip Glass. The title track and the haunting ‘Vague à l’âme’ have both proved popular with our listeners, but it’s worth checking out the whole five-track album.

4. THE SEED

This rubbery Shudder shocker answers the urgent question of what films like Eraserhead, Society and Xtro would look like if they had more swimsuits. The score, however, is genuinely entertaining, composed by Colombian musician Lucrecia Dalt, who lives in Berlin, has a background in geotechnical engineering, draws influences from Colombian mythology and German New Wave cinema, and is on a mission to explore “contemporary frontiers of avant-garde and electronic music, channelling age-old questions in a distinct and transgressive musical language”. And if anybody ever wrote a CV specifically designed to catch my attention, then that was it!

MARK KERMODE’S FILM MUSIC SHOW, IN ASSOCIATION WITH EMPIRE, IS ON SCALA RADIO ON SATURDAYS FROM 1-3PM (SCALARADIO.CO.UK)