The Proposition was a thing that seemed to find itself, and it was amazing to see that unfold. I'd say 80% of it is very improvised and organic. Then we start with an editor sitting down and putting it into the film. It's like when we go in for Grinderman, we sit down and make slabs and slabs of music, just keep recording and come out with sometimes five or six CD of music. The Bad Seeds too, Nick obviously has a thing going on with his words, and the Bad Seeds as a band has always been about the music as well, what sort of moods it creates in serving the song. with Dirty Three for instance we've never gone out there just to make mood music, there's been a sense of purpose involved in what we're doing, there's been a narrative. In a way ours is different because we come from a different background, I've worked in an instrumental band for a very long time and it's always felt to me like a very different. It's seems 'oh give us some spooking music, Jake' and away they go. A lot of the times when you listen to it it's as if anything could have been chucked in there, it seems incredibly arbitrary. Soundtracks replacing the classical repertoire on radio, and they do sound strangely dislocated outside the original cinematic context They feel in many ways like their own statement. We end up with completed pieces that have a start, a middle and an end.

Our music is done in a very different kind of way, it's never spotted to moments in the film, we don't make 15 seconds of a certain kind of music for a certain moment, they're always fully realised pieces. it's kind of cheeky in a way, they just stick on some incidental music that sounds as if it's from a cartoon. A lot of soundtracks can be very disappointing if you buy them, there's only one or two pieces that you remember and are actually any good, and the rest just feel as if they've lifted it off the film and put it on. They're not just incidental music from a film. That's a big part of releasing all the soundtracks that we do, Nick and I have to feel that they have to stand up on their own. Is that something you're conscious of when you're creating them? Your soundtracks often work in pieces of music in their own right. But the film is soaked in the mother's absence and resonates throughout. I never saw it in that way, it seemed more a theme which related to the journey and the father and son. Its emotional arc is very different to ours. We never discussed Moonlight Sonata, honestly, but now you mention there is something there, although ours lacks the tension and resolve in that piece.

Was it intended to act as leitmotif for the absence of the wife? The piano refrain bears a resemblance to Moonlight Sonata, and recurs throughout the film. It just seems to be part of the whole process of making a film There were probably issues but I feel happy with the result. We were constantly trying to hold the music back, keep it minimal and simple, light and not overloading the scenes. Were there any parts of The Road soundtrack that proved problematic in this way? In all the films we have worked on, editing has gone on way past the date we finish the music. As the music is often improvised it tends to be rather flexible and moves with the changes made to the film. John Hillcoat had strong idea about placement and style, and we worked with our regular editor Gerard Mccan. In the case of The Road,we saw several different cuts which varied greatly. I had also read the script before we started work on the film.'Дid you work from a final cut of the film, or rushes? I've read most of his books, Blood Meridian being my favourite. We began by asking Ellis whether he was a fan of the original novel, and Cormac McCarthy. The Proposition soundtrack, written for John Hillcoat's 2005 'Australian western' stands up as an album on its own right, while the fragmentary pieces for the same director's current adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road are both more startling (for the notorious basement meat locker scene) and, at times, perhaps resembling a more traditional film score. Occasionally they seem to inform each other, the dark hums and dissolute vocals on much of The Proposition echoing moments on both Grinderman and Dig. In many ways, their work for cinema вЂ“ collected on last year's White Lunar - is a fascinating counterpoint to the music they produce for their two bands. In the background of all this, though, has been Cave and Ellis' collaboration on soundtracks for film, theatre and documentaries. There is, of course, The Bad Seeds' return to highly sexed/undersexed, sonic grouching in Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! and the superlative Grinderman, who are expected to release their second album later this year.

The past few years have been fruitful for the creative partnership of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.

Cave story soundtrack differences