In January, after Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros frontman Alex Ebert accepted his first Golden Globe for Best Original Score for the film, All is Lost, he thanked director J.C. Chandor for having faith in him and giving him the opportunity of a lifetime. “Even the most deft pen is a clumsy tool, and yet we still try for magic. Thanks for letting me try — all over the movie,” Ebert said.
So when Chandor needed someone to help develop the soundtrack for his latest film, A Most Violent Year, the decision was a no-brainer.
“He may have had ideas coming in but he’s so good at letting me find my way and then coming to him with stuff and getting the conversation going from there,” Ebert told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s sort of the way to work. At first he was considering the movie to be a needle drop movie, as he calls it. It was going to be a lot of songs. Halfway into the filming he suddenly felt that he needed a score. It wasn’t like the whole movie was a particular kind of brand of score that he had in mind. So we just started from scratch.”
A Most Violent Year, a crime drama starring Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain as a pair of modern-day oil tycoons in 1981 New York, will premiere in select theatres on Dec. 31. The soundtrack was released through Communiuty Music on Dec. 16, and features nine tracks written and composed by Ebert, including two different versions of the song “Garden Shadows,” as well as the movie’s closing song “America For Me.” The soundtrack is now available on iTunes and Spotify.
Here is the tracklist for A Most Violent Year (Original Music from and Inspired By Alex Ebert):
1. America for Me
2. I Am and We Are
3. Garden Shadows (Piano)
4. Random Piece
5. Abel’s Theme
6. Running
7. Underneath
8. Close Haircut
9. Garden Shadows (Orchestra)
Read more about Ebert’s latest score:
Stream: Alex Ebert’s score for A Most Violent Year (Consequence of Sound)
Alex Ebert talks about his ‘ominous’ score for ‘A Most Violent Year’ (Entertainment Weekly)
How Composer Alex Ebert Tuned Into ‘A Most Violent Year,’ J.C. Chandor, “Celestial Archaeology” (Indiewire)
Ebert infuses synth, American dream angst with ‘A Most Violent Year’ (HitFlix)