In late 2019, Crossing Paths began writing the score and songs for the film Raven, their first Original SoundTrack. Their musical journey took them to an English rural village, France during the Revolution, Ottoman Egypt, and the high seas in between.

In this new collaboration, Esbe and Peter Michaels found a close working relationship, and a shared interest in working with musicians and compositional techniques from around the world. Both with Eastern and Southern European heritage, Raven gave them the ideal opportunity to utilise their perfectly matched talents and musical insight. The resulting album evokes the vision of the film, with sweeping orchestration, the soaring vocals that Esbe is renowned for, plus intimate and memorable ballads.

Raven is based on the 16th Century true story of Martin Guerre, with the events now taking place following the Battle of the Nile during the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt. Several scenes, such as THE ARRIVAL and THREE PILGRIMS, feature Middle Eastern-inflected vocalese perfectly fused with Eastern and Western instrumentation. The updated story is told through the imposter’s wife, Raven, shedding light on how her husband’s identity theft impacted her both materially and emotionally. The film is set in a small town in England, though many scenes, often flash-backs or Raven’s imaginings, are of the war on both land and at sea. The title track, RAVEN, and its epilogue RAVEN: LAY ME TO REST, evoke the green fields where Raven would walk each day, recalling events from early in their marriage. In RISING FROM THE MIST, Esbe’s ethereal vocals take us to the dockside as a ship slowly emerges through the sea-fog.

The OST underpins the historic setting and portrays Raven’s loneliness as she awaits her husband’s return, followed by the confusion around his changed personality and demeanour. Distance and solitude are evoked by two poignant ballads, RAINING DOWN, where Raven sits alone awaiting his return, and the LULLABY she sings to her baby recalling how much he loved them both, before he returned so changed. FOLLOW THE RIVER is produced as both an intimate song to accompany Raven as she journeys seaward to meet her husband, and for the film’s atmospheric credit sequence, paying homage to the Cocteau Twins.

The writing duo of ‘Crossing Paths’, Esbe and Peter Michaels, both renowned composers and musicians in their own right, completed ten pieces for the film before production was halted in late 2022.

The rights were retained by the duo.