.png)
Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch is a musician and film composer. Classically trained but now working in a very modern idiom across soundtracks, sampling, field recordings and performance, Levienaise-Farrouch has been nominated for both Ivor Novello and British Independent Film Awards. She began her career studying piano, but these days she is immersed in finding new ways of combining acoustic instruments with digital sampling technology.
Composing for the screen has become a way of mixing her love of storytelling and music. “All music in film needs to be intentional—a good composer needs to know when to take a back seat,” she explains. Levienaise-Farrouch’s recent works include the soundtracks to the Oscar-nominated 2022 film Living, starring Bill Nighy and Aimee Lou Wood, and Prano Bailey-Bond’s 2021 psychological horror Censor.
“For me, computers were the most important musical instrument—that’s what excited me most,” she says. “I tend to mix live instruments and sampled sounds, often coming from organic sources like acoustic instruments or sounds collected from the environment and nature.”
Levienaise-Farrouch’s distinctive approach is shaped by experimentation, meticulous attention to detail and her accomplished musicianship. “As an artist, you have to be inspired by the little things,” she says, describing how she often experiments with contact microphones to pick up the sounds of the body and manipulated voices, as well as traditional instruments.
“I like to listen and let the sounds guide me—it’s very much a matter of personal taste and mood. I will layer effects or processes and when I hear something that I like, or that piques my interest, I will follow that direction and see where else it might lead me. Samples can be stretched and pitch-shifted or I can add layers of effects to completely change the envelope of a sound. It’s often a journey of discovery—you can start with one sound and then experiment until it feels right.”
For Levienaise-Farrouch, music is a spatial canvas, a way of taking the listener on a journey. “I don't necessarily think in terms of frequencies but rather in what's called ‘timbre’ in musical language,” she says. “It’s like somebody’s voice, instruments have a specific texture to them—a violin will have a different identity to a piano, for example. I also think in terms of bass, mids and trebles, and how different instruments can cover each area. Then there is panning—deciding where each instrument sits in space. This can also be dynamic—an instrument can appear to move, which is exciting.”
With its powerful 27-speaker Meridian Signature sound system and unique Body and Soul Seats, Range Rover Sport SV assists and enhances this spatial approach to composition. In addition, the car’s sophisticated onboard noise-canceling creates an impressive acoustic environment for listening to all kinds of music. “It’s important to note that this doesn’t just cancel out powertrain noise, which is relatively straightforward, but also road noise, which is much more complicated as it results from more sources and paths that can generate noise.”
For Levienaise-Farrouch, finding such a dedicated listening space is a rarity. “A car can be a very special environment, especially when you have such superb audio technology to hand,” she says. “I think that’s why so many of us love listening to music on a car trip, with the landscape flowing all around you when you’re in this bubble of music.”
Range Rover Sport SV’s noise-canceling system carefully analyzes incoming sound and then generates precisely inverted sound waves that “cancel” out the source. “In order to do this, we have four headliner-mounted microphones that are constantly listening to cabin noise,” explains Duncan Smith, the programme group leader. “Crucially, certain noises can also be predicted, like how engine and transmission noise are affected by the engine rpm. We also measure road noise through sensors between the tire and structure.” This sonic tapestry is fed into Range Rover Sport SV’s noise-canceling system, which then uses the audio speakers to generate the canceling vibrations—a complex digital process that happens in real-time. “We can also calibrate the system depending on how many people are in the car,” says Smith. “Our goal is to get excellent performance whether you’re in the front or back—or even in row three, if a car has one.”
The Body and Soul Seat works hand in hand with noise canceling to deliver a unique experience for front seat occupants. Four low-end frequency transducers embedded in the seats transmit tones split from the original sound source using an AI module. “The Body and Soul Seat optimizes the low-end frequency signals, greatly improving the way we perceive music,” Smith says. “When everything comes together, the noise-canceling system creates the perfect neutral acoustic environment in which to experience the benefits of our BASS technology.”
This added physical dimension to sound is eagerly embraced by Levienaise-Farrouch. “One of the most beautiful aspects of playing an instrument is how close you are to the sound source—a guitar is held against your body, for example, so it’s a profound experience,” she says. “Together with the Body and Soul Seat, multi-speaker systems go beyond stereo to let you decide how high or low you want a sound source to be, whether it’s above or behind, and what it feels like. This allows a composer to shape music as if it was a sculptural, three-dimensional object.”
New technology has always been a driving force behind Levienaise-Farrouch’s work, as is the art of marrying music to image. “The first time I was really blown away by the power of a film score was when I watched Blade Runner the first time,” she recalls. “The opening track by Vangelis evoked a completely new world, a reality and a power I didn’t know music could have. When I’m in a car, I prefer to listen to music as a passenger. Then I can just drift off and treat the moving landscape as if it was a film. Ideally, you should always listen to music with this kind of intent, so you can become immersed in its journey and story.”
Experience a new era of audio performance in Range Rover Sport SV here.
