Nicolas Winding Refn‘s haunting, mostly silent and meditative Viking movie “Valhalla Rising” came out all the way back in 2009. In our review way back when, we described it as akin to “Terrence Malick making a horror movie,” and that’s kinda not far off the mark (maybe Kubrick making a twisted nature movie too).
“I always wanted to make a drug movie. Because you can present it in one way as this movie is about some Vikings going crazy and killing each other. But at least I can see now that it has many themes going through it and it’s very open to interpretation,” Refn told us in a 2009 interview. “It’s about science-fiction but without science. It’s about faith, and what’s beyond faith is when you die.”
One of the more terrific elements of the movie was the score by Peter Peter and Peter Kyed (they did Refn’s “Bleeder” and parts of his “Pusher” trilogy) and sound designers Giles Lamb and Douglas Macdougall, which we called, “a molten doom-metal like mix of tribal, pounding drums, feedback and ghostly atmospherics.” Sadly, no soundtrack was ever released, but fortunately that’s been rectified by Milan Records. Having already released the Cliff Martinez score to “Only God Forgives,” Milan has gotten into the Refn business and they’ll be releasing the belated “Valhalla Rising” soundtrack on October 22nd (here’s an Amazon digital link).
A few weeks following the CD/digital release, they’ll also be releasing the soundtrack on good ol’ vinyl. We’ve got three copies of the LP to giveaway. All you need to do is email us with your name, address and the answer to this question: what’s the name of the actor who plays the kid in “Valhalla Rising”? Good luck. And if you want to listen to the full album it’s streaming on Pitchfork Advance today.
Update: Contest closed, winners will be contacted via email.
