While Park City continues to buzz with celebs and films and the festival heads into its final weekend, let's take a moment take our eyes off the movies, and instead open up our ears. As it turns out, a good handful of the movies at the Sundance Film Festival are being powered by the music of some pretty impressive performers.
Kicking things off, TwentyFourBit has learned that the eternally awesome Nick Cave has teamed up with his Grinderman, Dirty Three and Bad Seeds bandmate and "The Road" co-composer Warren Ellis, to tune up the Peter Jackson-prodcued, Amy Berg-directed "West of Memphis." Of course, as you know, the film is an in-depth chronicle of the saga of the West Memphis Three, with the film bringing forth fresh evidence pointing toward the real perpetrator of the crimes. But that's not the only movie where we'll be hearing music from Cave, as last year he confirmed he'd been tuning up "The Wettest County" for longtime collaborator John Hillcoat. Two movies with music from one of our favorite musicians? 2012 is looking up already.
Meanwhile, Portland-based singer-songwriter Laura Veirs has provided a handful of songs to "Love Liza" director Todd Louiso's "Hello I Must Be Going." Her particular brand of melancholic yet lush songs are a perfect fit for the film about a 35-year-old woman in the midst of a life crisis, who moves back home and falls into a relationshiop with a 19-year-old. As Louiso told us in a recent interview, the film mostly features previously released songs, but she did record one new tune for the movie.
Keeping in that indie spirit, Fruit Bats member Eric D. Johnson and Vetiver leader Andy Cabic have teamed to score the festival sensation "Smashed," the alcoholism drama starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Aaron Paul. Johnson has been busy in the past year on composing work, contributing to Max Winkler's "Ceremony" and last year's Sundance crowd pleaser "Our Idiot Brother." And pairing up with folk styling of Cabic fits right in his already roots-driven wheelhouse.
Band and multimedia collective Fall On Your Sword have also been busy. They tuned up Brit Marling's "Another Earth" and return to Sundance this year with two scores, one for Ry Russo-Young's "Nobody Walks" and the other for "28 Motel Rooms." The former stars John Krasinski, Olivia Thirlby, Rosemarie Dewitt and more, and centers on a young woman whose stay with a family in Los Angeles changes the lives of everyone around her. The latter stars Chris Messina whose one-night stand in a distant city turns into something more.
Former Luna bandmates Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips continue their foray into film scoring (which has included Noah Baumbach's "The Squid and the Whale"), by composing the tunes for "Price Check." The Parker Posey-starring film finds her playing a supermarket chain pricing executive who shakes up the life of her employee, whose dreams of working in the music industry are fading.
Final notes: The hunger-in-America documentary "Finding North" has tunes from T. Bone Burnett and The Civil Wars (who both feature on the "Hunger Games" soundtrack); short film "Long Distance Information" has an assist from Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys while the long awaited Paul Dano drama "For Ellen" has a score from minimalist Icelandic composer and producer, Johann Johannsson.
