Varèse Sarabande Records will release Life of Crime – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally and will be available as a disc-on-demand, date TBA. The soundtrack features the original score composed by The Newton Brothers (Oculus, Proxy). Life of Crime opens in theaters, on demand, and on iTunes on August 29, 2014.
"This movie is really a dark comedy," said Taylor Newton Stewart. "But it has moments of tension, suspense and even some romance. We worked hand-in-hand with the director to achieve some cool stuff with riffs, grooves, songs and orchestration. A lot of opportunity to be creative on this film."
The Newton Brothers—aka Andy Grush and Taylor Newton Stewart—have combined their unique forces of classical knowledge, instrumental dexterity, and knack for electronics to contribute distinct music to a diverse spectrum of film projects. The Newton Brothers added chills to Mike Flanagan's Oculus, emotion to Tony Kaye's acclaimed classroom drama Detachment, tension to Mike Gunther's crime thriller Setup, and black humor to Pawn Shop Chronicles. They recently lent their Newtonian approach to the action/thriller The Prince and reteamed with Mike Flanagan for Somnia.
Andy and Taylor were both learning and making music from a young age, educated and inspired by such wide-ranging influences as Puccini operas, John Williams film scores, and albums by Kraftwerk and Nine Inch Nails. Between the two, they play piano, guitar, bass, clarinet, flute, accordion, sax, harmonica, percussion, organ, kazoo, and cello. They fuse their classical education with a skill and savvy in electronics and manipulated sounds, and capitalize on having two musical heads.
Based on Elmore Leonard's novel The Switch, Life of Crime is a dark caper comedy starring Jennifer Aniston, John Hawkes, Yasiin Bey, Will Forte, Mark Boone Junior, Isla Fisher and Tim Robbins. The wife (Jennifer Aniston) of a corrupt real estate developer (Tim Robbins) is kidnapped by two common criminals (Yasiin Bey and John Hawkes) who intend to extort him with inside information about his crooked business and off-shore accounts. But the husband decides he'd actually rather not pay the ransom to get back his wife, setting off an unbelievable sequence of double crosses and plot twists that could only come from the mind of Elmore Leonard.
"Because this takes place in the 70's we used a lot of vintage instruments and recording techniques from that period," explained Taylor Newton. "We used bongos, organs, wah-guitar, flute, trumpet, and others, but we also sprinkled a little synthesizers underneath it to give it a slight modern feel at times."
Life of Crime - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack from Varèse Sarabande Records will be available digitally on August 25, 2104.