It’s safe to say as Nicolas Winding Refn’s current muse, actor-turned-director Ryan Gosling, is also heavily influenced by his filmmaker friend. Take Gosling’s directorial debut “Lost River,” which is scored by dreamy analogue synth artist Johnny Jewel (who’s also in the bands Glass Candy, Chromatics Desire and Symmetry). Before scoring Gosling’s entire film, Jewel was probably best known for his musical contributions to Refn’s “Bronson” and “Drive.”
So perhaps taking cues from his main bro (who has defended the actor’s film vigorously), Gosling tapped Jewel to write the entire score to his polarizing debut “Lost Rive,r” which some have compared to David Lynch, and yes, a little bit of Refn, too (here’s our review).
In a press release from a few months back, Jewel said, "When Ryan e-mailed me the script my immediate feeling was that the whole film should be sonically immersed in metal and water. I started sending Ryan music in February of 2013 for his early trips to scout locations. Ryan and I live seven minutes away from one another, so we’d watch the film at his house at night, and then we’d drive over to my house and experiment with musical ideas in my studio."
Yesterday Jewel released “Bullytown,” a track that features actor Matt Smith (“Dr. Who”) cussing up a storm with dialogue taken straight from the film. Jewel previously revealed the love theme "Yes" from a few months ago (including two remixes which you can listen and buy here) which features vocals from Chromatics’ Ruth Radelet, Glass Candy’s Ida No, and Desire’s Megan Louise. You can listen to it all below.
“Lost River” arrives in theaters on April 10th via Warner Bros. and will be out on VOD at the same time. Italians Do It Better will release the soundtrack on March 30th.