Back Lot Music has released the soundtrack album for Universal Pictures' Split, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, it was announced today. The soundtrack includes new music from composer West Dylan Thordson, and the digital soundtrack release coincides with the film's domestic release today. A vinyl version of the album is planned for later this year.
Thordson is a composer and bandleader who got his start in the Twin Cities music scene before moving to New York and developing his career as a composer of film scores. After leading the band, A Whisper in the Noise for many years, he caught his first big break when Shyamalan featured Thordson's version of Bob Dylan's classic "The Times They Are A-Changin'" at the end of Shyamalan's film Lady in the Water.
Though Thordson's move to New York was meant to be temporary, until the end of working on the film Foxcatcher, his rise in the ranks of film composers continued in 2015 when he scored every episode of the HBO hit series The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst. It was this series that lead Thordson to working on Split, after Shyamalan and team became fans of his score from the series.
Discussing his work with Shyamalan on the film, Thordson says, "Night was meticulous as a director on Split, seeing the score's role as shadowing the emotional journey of the characters on screen as the story unfolded. As for the sonic colors, we heavily focused on keeping the timbre animalistic and raw."