DONNA MCKEVITT : REALITY IS NOT ENOUGH - OST

Irvine Welsh : Reality Is Not Enough

Original Soundtrack

Artists: Donna McKevitt, Maxine Peake, Irvine Welsh, Stephen Graham, Mark Hannah, Helen Behan and Olivia Caw

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I believe in my tribe. I believe in the righteous, intelligent clued-up section of the working classes against the brain-dead moronic masses as well as the mediocre, soulless bourgeoisie. I believe in punk rock. In northern soul. In acid house. In mod. In rock and roll. I also believe in pre- commercial righteous, rap and hip hop. That's my manifesto.
From ‘Porno’, Irvine Welsh

When Paul Sng’s landmark documentary feature ‘Irvine Welsh: Reality Is Not Enough’ headlined the Edinburgh Film Festival this summer, there was quite a buzz - not just about the film, or Welsh himself, but because of its music.

Welsh, himself a DJ and dance music promoter, is an enormous music fan, and acknowledges the debt that his famously idiosyncratic prose owes to the 90s rave scene:

That’s why I used the Scottish vernacular, because it was beatier, it was funkier, it was like a ‘weights and measures’ language, like standard English. It’s an oral tradition – the Celtic oral tradition. It’s meant to be spoken and performed. So it has beats in it.

Award-winning composer, and 90s darkwave legend Donna McKevitt was tasked by Sng to create a soundtrack that augmented Welsh’s journey in the film. Bio-doc, trip-umentary, philosophy and literary life are entwined in McKevitt’s eclectic score, with voicing from Welsh himself and actors Maxine Peake, Irvine Welsh, Stephen Graham, Helen Behan, and two young local actors; Mark Hannah and Olivia Caw. From acid house to ambient, from techno to Celtic acoustic, these tracks span the influences and tastes of the author.

McKevitt’s music accompanies Welsh exploring a hallucinogenic dimension during a controlled dose of DMT; trekking through a world of heroin, acid and glue, and musing on class war, the oppression of the individual and, as the author puts it, the ‘cosmic connection’ within the universe.

Welsh says about the rave scene:

I was obsessed with it. I mean, for the first few years, I was like a hedonistic raver and club goer, I would go all over the country to raves and to get involved.

This is not an EDM album, but a soundtrack to a man for whom music - especially electronic music - has played a significant role in his life and creativity. McKevitt’s music is as genre-crossing as Welsh’s brain.  A long way from Hans Zimmer, this is the muzak of a deranged, piss-stinking tenement lift in Leith.

In his own words Irvine admits “The beautiful score elevates the subject matter to undeserved levels”.