Claire Rousay - The Bloody Lady LP

Electroacoustic composer claire rousay (US) presents her new album, ‘The Bloody Lady’, featuring the reimagined score she wrote for Viktor Kubal's 1980 eponymous animated film. Kubal (1923-1997), a pioneering Slovak animator, is considered one of the most influential animation filmmakers of the 20th century.

Known as a singular artist who challenges conventions in experimental and ambient music forms, rousay crafted the score in her home studio immediately after moving to LA over the course of 2023.

The inaugural performance, a screening of the film accompanied by rousay performing the score live, took place at Videodroom / Film Fest Gent 2023 in Ghent, Belgium. The project has since been developed into an 11-track album with alternating themes that evoke the film’s atmosphere while standing on its own as a distinct sonic work.

Based on the lurid folk tale of Elisabeth Bathory (1560–1614), the trippy Slovak animated film ‘The Bloody Lady’ follows the story of a Slovak noblewoman. Accused of murdering hundreds of girls and women. Her murderous motive: hoping to remain eternally young, she allegedly bathed in their blood. The film begins like a classic Disney fairy tale, but it soon takes a dark turn toward tragedy.

Central to both the film and rousay’s score is the heart and its rhythmic pulse. "The actions surrounding the heart are pivotal in the film, and, along with its heartbeat, they formed the initial pulse of the score’, the American musician says. Much like the story itself, her compositions are whimsical, with subtle hints of looming menace. As this underlying tension lingers in the background, the score incorporates everyday sounds and nature recordings to evoke an ethereal yet unsettling atmosphere. To create these emotive textures, rousay primarily relied on a blend of granular VST synths, piano, pitched-down violin, and an array of field recordings.

In a twist of serendipity claire mentions she had been traveling around Hungary and had actually visited the castle of Elisabeth Bathory a full year before being commissioned to work on the new score. She had made some field recordings there, in both the forests and around the site and randomly recorded the ambiance in a local bar. All these sounds have found their way as foliage into the live soundtrack. “A coincidence I couldn’t have dreamed up, even if I wanted to”, she says.

What stood out most in the film for her, was its multilayered nature. “On the surface, it presents a literal, fairytale-like narrative, but the deeper you go, the more subtle details emerge,” rousay explains. It made her question the malleable ethics of the characters. “While their actions seem intentionally straightforward, the perception of right and wrong becomes skewed when viewed from different perspectives. Being submerged in this world allowed me to experience the story from within and engage with the characters and plot from multiple angles.”

The Bloody Lady marks an unexpected new chapter in Rousay's blossoming career, demonstrating her ability to apply her delicate melodic sensibility and meticulous attention to detail to the medium of film. This score becomes a deeply personal and heartfelt project, casting new light on Viktor Kubal’s more-than-40-year-old magnum opus and helping it regain the recognition it deserves.

“ The Bloody Lady is a timeless story of unfulfilled love that leads to the destruction of one’s humanity. The eternal dualism of love and hate.“ (Rastislav Steranka, Slovak Film Institute)

"A new soundtrack can shed new light on a film, making viewers notice details they might have otherwise missed. Rousay’s approach mirrors Kubal’s 'less is more' philosophy, encapsulated by the phrase 'a dot and a line.' By leaving ample space in the soundtrack, she invites viewers to interpret and fill in the gaps, allowing them to engage more deeply with the film’s narrative." (Wouter Vanhaelemeesch, VIERNULVIER Records)