Montreal orchestral indie rockers The Besnard Lakes have been tapped to score Mark Ruffalo’s directorial debut, “Sympathy For Delicious” which already finished shooting earlier this year and stars Orlando Bloom, Juliette Lewis, Ruffalo, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich and John Carroll Lynch (Marge’s husband in Norm in “Fargo”).
The film is, according to a Variety from last year, is about a paralyzed DJ (real-life paraplegic actor Christopher Thornton) struggling to survive in his wheelchair on the streets of L.A. He turns to faith-healing and mysteriously acquires the ability to cure the sick — although not himself. Ruffalo plays a Jesuit priest who tries to help him come to terms with the limits of his gift, and [Orlando Bloom] a rock singer in a band that exploits the suddenly famous healer.” James Franco was originally set to play the rocker, but evidently either his education at NYU or another project got in the way and Bloom replaced him.
Franco described the project to MTV when he was still part of the picture.
“DJ Delicious….he’s this DJ character was written for [Mark’s] friend who’s actually paraplegic in real life, Chris Thornton, and he’s this DJ that has kind of a gift. He joins up with my band and then starts getting more attention than me, the lead singer. So I start getting upset about that.”
Of course that insecure singer is now Orlando Bloom.
A music licensing pal in Montreal tell us that while two or three licensed other tracks will appear in the film (bands not confirmed as of yet), the the rest of the music will be an original score by the Besnard Lakes (though the music will be specifically written by the two founding members). Ruffalo turned out to be a fan and the music supes put the music into the right hands. The rest is history.
Not familiar with the band? The group, led by husband and wife founders, Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, have been kicking around Montreal for the last several years and starting to gain attention around 2004 when that cities musical scene started to bubble up on the map (Montreal groups like, the Arcade Fire, Stars, and bands that Lasek has helped produce and record like Sunset Rubdown, Islands, Wolf Parade, etc.)
Their outstanding 2007 experimental pop album, The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse, only helped their case with critics as their sound took a huge creative leap forward adding in reverb-drenched orchestral dimensions, Beach Boys harmonies and falsettos, Pink Floyd-like atmospherics and and the moody album saw contributions from members of Stars, The Dears and Godspeed You! Black Emperor/Silver Mt. Zion on various instruments like flutes, strings and singing in various choirs on the album (we included one of their jaunty and ghostly songs on our “If We Were Spike Jonze” mix from last year).
Some rather hilarious looking photos of Bloom as the rocker Stain hit the web earlier this year (see above, cue the LOLs). He looks like a cross between one of the afros in the Mars Volta and Devendra Banhart. Lasek has also stared a new side project called The Soft Province which sound like a slightly more mellow, more stripped-down version of the Besnard’s sound which has grown increasingly symphonic and ambitious over the years.
Here’s the Kara Blake directed video for their track, “For Agent 13.” The band are also pretty good buddies of the Playlist, so we congratulate them on this fortuitous news, cheers.