For all his screen persona as an introverted, socially unaware geek, it is fairly obvious that Richard Ayoade is an extremely cool guy. One area in which this is clear is in the stylish music videos that The IT Crowd's Moss has directed for bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Vampire Weekend and Super Furry Animals. His most frequent musical collaborator by some margin, however, is Arctic Monkeys front man Alex Turner. Ayoade directed the videos for the Sheffield band's singles Fluorescent Adolescent, Crying Lightning and Cornerstone as well as their Live At the Apollo DVD and videos for Turner's side project The Last Shadow Puppets. When it came to making his debut feature, an adaptation of Joe Dunthorne's Welsh-set coming of age comedy Submarine, there was only one person Ayoade was likely to call to provide the music. As with Queen and Howard Blake on Flash Gordon (or Simon & Garfunkel and Dave Grusin on The Graduate), Turner's original songs mix with more traditional score elements from Andrew Hewitt, Ayoade's collaborator from his early work on Garth Marenghi's Darkplace to The Double. Eschewing the garage rock sound of Arctic Monkeys or the lush string arrangements of Last Shadow Puppets, Turner's Submarine songs are stripped down acoustic numbers. Turner's lyrical wit and poignancy makes a very appropriate match to the same qualities in Ayoade both as writer and director.
