SIOUXSIE & The Banshees bassist and co-founder turned film-score composer Steven Severin returns to City Screen, York, on Sunday afternoon to perform his new synthesised soundscape to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s German/French silent movie Vampyr (PG).

This is the third instalment of his ongoing film-accompaniment series, Music For Silents, and this time Severin’s blending of sound and image will “heighten appreciation of the surreal and enigmatic nature of Dreyer’s unsettling 1932 tale of fear and obsession”.

Vampyr depicts how a young man staying in a remote inn suspects he is surrounded by vampires and dreams of his own death.

Charles Hutchinson enters Vampyr’s lair to discover Steven’s world of sound.

Your previous score, 2010’s Blood Of A Poet, was a mixture of samples, virtual instruments and found sounds. What forms the soundscape this time, Steven?

“The sources are similar because I see Vampyr as the conclusion of a trilogy with my previous silent scores for Blood Of A Poet and Seashell & The Clergyman. This score is heavier on drones and loops though. It’s deliberately ‘undramatic’ until it really needs to be.”

What have you learned from writing your two previous film scores?

“That the most important thing is to allow time to watch and re-watch and watch again. You don’t really understand a film until you’ve got inside it a dozen or so times. That’s a luxury you’re not really allowed when working on a commercial project. The counter-balance is that with a commercial project you get assistance from the director. Tackling films that are 80 years old does mean that there’s an awful lot of academic studies you can draw from instead. That helps.”

What attracted you to composing a score to Dreyer’s Vampyr, and what are the film’s themes that struck you most?

“Vampyr had been on my radar for several years, but when I returned to it after working with Blood and Seashell it struck me that there was a thread running between all three films. Namely, that of a single male character lost in a world that he can neither control nor understand. The Clergyman, the Poet and the occult enthusiast. That connection appealed to me. All three have very dream-like qualities, which suits my music.”

How does composing a film score contrast with writing and performing songs in the rock format with Siouxsie And The Banshees?

“Quite simply that was then, this is now. By the time the Banshees were winding down (1992-1995) I was already feeling that I had, for better or worse, evolved beyond the song format. When you look at the entire Banshees catalogue of work, you will find hundreds of variations on the form. By the time the band split, I think my song ideas had just run their course. That’s okay because it felt entirely natural to move on.”

What else is happening in the musical world of Steven Severin?

“Lots, actually. This summer should see the release of a film that I scored with my wife, Arban: Joshua Tree 1951: A Portrait Of James Dean. I’m heading out to Brazil to work with some old friends, Os Satyros theatre company, on a piece based on Petronius’s Satyricon.

“I’m also in talks with London Zoo about performing a score (inside the aquarium) to Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People and I have the seeds of a new show based on Harry Houdini. A mix of his silent movies and footage of his many tricks and stunts.”

•For tickets for Sunday’s 3.30pm screening of Vampyr with live soundscape accompaniment by Steven Severin, phone 0871 902 5726 or book online at picturehouses.co.uk