“The score captures the hope of young love and budding creativity tempered by tragically low expectations in a low-fi sci-fi, impressionist style.” – Screen Rant
How do you soundtrack teens broadcasting their budding romance to an alien race (who have taken over earth) to make ends meet? Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Abels (Get Out, Us, Nope) has released his score to Landscape With Invisible Hand–Original Motion Picture Soundtrack on Lakeshore Records! Abels utilizes piano, cello, and cinematic orchestrations to create a vividly magical and otherworldly score to the sci-fi fantasy film. View the full album tracklist and streaming links below.
MGM Pictures presents a Plan B Entertainment production, in association with Annapurna Pictures. Written for the screen and directed by Cory Finley and based on the book by M.T. Anderson, Landscape With Invisible Hand in theaters now.
Purchase/Stream the album: [Digital]
Landscape With Invisible Hand
(Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Michael Abels
01. A History of the Near Future
02. The Flying Settlement
03. Landscape with Invisible Hand
04. Can You Do That Look
05. The Artist Reveals His Portrait
06. Then I Found You
07. School Is Such a Wonderful Place
08. Lawsuit
09. A Mother’s Love
10. Shotgun Wedding March
11. Bedtime with Father
12. Paddles Down Honey
13. Father’s New Family
14. Sad Recorder Consort
15. The Artist Inspired
16. Departure to Destiny
17. The Mothership
18. School Closure
19. The Artist Begins Again
20. Moments of Melancholy
Notes Abels: ‘Quirky’ only begins to describe this score, unique among my work. From the outset, director Cory Finley wanted the theremin to be a featured instrument, and M.T. Anderson, author of the original novella Landscape With Invisible Hand, mentioned the ‘sad recorder consort’ as one of his favorite elements. Add to those choices a pipe organ, vintage synths, strings, piano and an odd assortment of percussion. The result is an impressionist, low-fi sci-fi, pastiche of melancholy capturing the hope of young love and budding creativity tempered by tragically low expectations.”
ABOUT MICHAEL ABELS
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Abels is well known for the genre-defying scores for the Jordan Peele films Get Out, Us and Nope and the opera, Omar, co-written with Rhiannon Gidens, and his genre-defying scores for the Jordan Peele films ‘Get Out,’ ‘Us,’ and ‘Nope.’ The score for ‘Us’ won a World Soundtrack Award, the Jerry Goldsmith Award, a Critics Choice nomination, multiple critics awards, and was named “Score of the Decade” by The Wrap. Both ‘Us’ and ‘Nope’ were shortlisted for the Oscar for Best Original Score, and ‘Nope’ won Outstanding Original Score for a Studio Film at the 2023 Society of Composer & Lyricist Awards.
In 2022, Michael Abels’ film music was honored by the Vancouver International Film Festival, the Middleburg Film Festival, and the Museum of the Moving Image. Other media projects include the films ‘Bad Education,’ ‘Nightbooks,’ the docu-series ‘Allen v. Farrow,’ ‘Breaking’ (Sundance 2021), and ‘Landscape With Invisible Hand’ (Sundance 2022), his second collaboration with director Cory Finley. Most recently, Abels composed, produced, and/or orchestrated all of the on-screen performances for Searchlight’s ‘Chevalier.’ Upcoming projects include Amazon’s ‘The Burial,’ and a series for Disney+.
In 2023, Abels was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for the opera, ‘Omar,’ co-composed with Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Rhiannon Giddens. The New York Times hailed Omar as “an ideal of an American sound,” and named ‘Omar’ among the 10 best classical music performances of 2022. Abels’ creative output also includes many concert works, including the choral song cycle ‘At War With Ourselves’ for the Kronos Quartet, and the Grammy-nominated ‘Isolation Variation’ for Hilary Hahn. Abels’ other concert works have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and many others. Some of these pieces are available on the Cedille label, including ‘Delights and Dances’ and ‘Winged Creatures.’ Recent commissions include ‘Emerge’ for the National Symphony and Detroit Symphony, and a guitar concerto ‘Borders’ for Grammy-nominated artist Mak Grgic.
Abels is co-founder of the Composers Diversity Collective, an advocacy group to increase visibility of composers of color in film, gaming and streaming media.
Years into a benevolent alien occupation of Earth, the human race is still adjusting to the new world order and its quirky coffee table-sized overlords called the Vuvv. Their flashy advanced technology initially held promise for global prosperity, but rendered most human jobs – and steady income – obsolete. When 17-year-old artist Adam Campbell (Asante Blackk) and new girlfriend Chloe Marsh (Kylie Rogers) discover the Vuvv are particularly fascinated with human love and will pay for access to it, they decide to livestream their budding romance to make extra cash for themselves and their families. Life is good, for a while, until the flame of their teenage love fizzles out and they’re forced to make very different, absurdly life-altering sacrifices for their families.
Landscape With Invisible Hand in theaters August 18! [Get tickets]
