Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Original Score, and shot in the glorious, vintage VistaVision format, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist stands as a monumental achievement in filmmaking. Opening with a mesmerizing and continuous 10-minute overture, composer Daniel Blumberg’s music sets the stage for the film’s epic narrative, which spans multiple decades and follows fictional Hungarian architect László Toth (played by Adrien Brody) as he rebuilds his life in post-war America.
Encompassing large-scale brass orchestrations, intimately lyrical piano melodies and freewheeling, improvisational jazz, The Brutalist’s score is as ambitious and broad in scope as the film itself. Envisioning the score as slabs of sound – rich and resonating while also measured and restrained – the music developed into the sonic embodiment of the Brutalist design aesthetic, where imposing scale and raw textures meet values of simplicity and economy. To craft its singular sound, Blumberg worked with a cast of boundary-pushing musicians and improvisers, traveling across the UK and Europe with a custom-built remote recording setup to capture his players on location. Exploiting the tension between the fluidity of improvised music and the meticulous precision of film scoring, Blumberg coaxed out beautifully rich and resonant performances from his collaborators, including avant-garde innovators Axel Dörner (trumpet), Evan Parker (saxophone), Sophie Agnel (piano), and John Tilbury (piano), to name a few.
For the film's frenetic and intoxicating jazz club scene, Blumberg assembled a jazz quartet (comprised of Pierre Borel on saxophone, Simon Sieger on piano, Joel Grip on bass, and Antonin Gerbal on drums) to perform improvised versions of his themes live on set, resulting in one of the film’s most electrifying numbers, as well as additional period-specific pieces that appear throughout the soundtrack. For the film’s 1980s-set Epilogue, Blumberg traveled to New York to work with synth-pop pioneer Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode, Erasure), deconstructing and rebuilding the film’s main theme into a redemptive, synth and drum machine-driven dance track befitting of the new era.
The score was mixed and co-produced by longtime Scott Walker collaborator Peter Walsh, who also worked on Blumberg’s past three records.
Pressed on 180-gram vinyl, the 2-LP release from Milan Records features printed sleeves housed in a gatefold package designed by The Brutalist title designer Sebastian Pardo in close collaboration with Daniel Blumberg.
1 Overture (Ship)
2 Overture (László)
3 Overture (Bus)
4 Chair
5 Van Buren's Estate
6 Library
7 Jazz Club
8 Porn
9 Monologue
10 Up the Hill
11 Pennsylvania
12 Bicycle
13 Steel
14 Intermission
15 Erzsébet
16 Handjob
17 Bath
18 Building Site
19 Ribbon Cutting
20 Picnic by the Lake
21 Gordon's Dinner
22 Looking at You
23 Vidui
24 New York
25 Stairs
26 Carrara
27 Marble
28 Tunnel
29 Construction
30 Heroin
31 Search Party
32 Epilogue (Venice)
