Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise @ Glasgow CCA, 9 Mar

"Atomic nature isn't necessarily tragic – it's sublime, in a way." From Mark Cousins, the prolific Belfast-born film producer/director seated tonight before a full CCA house to discuss his film 'Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise,' this may seem an anomalous comment. His powerful project chronicles the nuclear age with unflinching boldness, surveying the collective calamities of WWII, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.

Yet as the giant projection, full volume screening that precedes the Q&A session unfolds, scenes of toe curling atomic horror are shrewdly lifted by glimpses of the latent, inspirited promise – X-rays, medical advancements – that nuclear energy offers humanity. 

Equal measure of the power of this valiant documentary, comprised of BBC archival footage and released last year to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, is undoubtedly due to Mogwai's gripping original soundtrack.

Joining Cousins onstage following the screening, the group's multi-instrumentalist Barry Burns is quick to sum up Mogwai's approach to the music in gloriously pragmatic Glaswegian fashion. "You're not going to be sitting there thinking we're going to make something chipper", he deadpans – "we're not very good at that anyway."

Burns' modesty aside, Mogwai – with the incorporation, according to the musician, of "tonnes of vintage synth" – have crafted a brilliantly emotive but never cloying accompaniment to Cousins' captivating collage of images. For every stirring crescendo, there are strategic moments of quiet clarity – as the bombs rain down over Japan, Mogwai respond with near silence; just a slight synth chime provides a perfectly eerie and poignant counterpoint to a moment, as Burns matter-of-factly notes, where "you can already imagine what it sounds like anyway."

Explaining that the development of the soundtrack was entrusted to the group in a way that they "were just trusted to get on with it," it's clear that Mogwai relish their creative freedom. Such freedom appears to have also allowed the band to experiment with their sound; many fans will clock the more upbeat, electronic tone of their latest work. Cousins and Burns both laugh as they recall the moment of mock-surprise the director expressed upon hearing the ebullient Ether, the album opener, with its uncharacteristically-Mogwai major chord structure.

In reprieve, perhaps, for stoically stomaching this uneasy but essential audio-visual collaboration, the evening concludes with an exclusive, pre-release vinyl playback of Mogwai's reworked soundtrack (set for release on 1 April) with two towering, alien-looking KEF speakers providing suitably bone-shaking audio levels. As the album plays the audience are left to come and go as they please, popping in and out for a pint before settling in to contemplate the harrowing horrors of the nuclear age, but also the hope that dwells within.