Varèse Sarabande will release the American Ultra – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally on September 25, 2015. The album features original music by composer Marcelo Zarvos with additional original music by Orbital's Paul Hartnoll.
"I always love when a film pushes me to do something different from what I've done before," said Zarvos. "In the case of American Ultra director Nima Nourizadeh was very keen on an electronic sounding score, so we could never really picture a person playing an instrument. Even when certain elements were played live, a lot of time was spent processing the sounds so they always felt strange and unexpected. It was a fun direction that informed the entire score."
"Paul comes from the pop world and I obviously come from film," said Zarvos. "I think the idea was to blend those two worlds into a cohesive whole."
"I'd had chat with Nima, the director. We spoke about the various themes and styles that would be needed for the film," Hartnoll explained. "Nima's main directions were 'make it more organic with the drums', he wanted them to have a primal feel. Another one was 'do something that would kick off at the Glastonbury Festival', and 'more wrapped, more twisted!' All words as a composer, you want to hear!"
"I scored the fireworks scene first as it was the end game to every fight scene, it's where Mike turns the tables," Hartnoll described. "Everything else from my end was a variation and build to that moment. It's also where Marcelo and I come together for the first time and the two strands of the score come together. As the score progressed, Marcelo and I collaborated on two long pieces that were for the big fight scene near the end of the film."
American Ultra was released nationwide in theaters August 21.