Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros have come such a long way since I saw them during a series of free shows at the Hammer museum in 2009. They have just released their third album a few months ago and have tour non-stop for years, spreading their gospel of emotional folk-chorale-soul, looking like world travelers with Alex Ebert/Edward Sharpe as a guru-like frontman.
Okay, people, calm down, I know they may sometimes sound a bit too happy, too much like a bunch of love-is-all-around-hippies, while Ebert may take his messianic role a bit too seriously, but their songs are uplifting and despite the redundancy of their proclaimed (and indestructible) optimism, they are a great live act.
They have recently pushed the Edward Sharpe experience to a new level with this recently announced 4-day Big Top festival held in the Los Angeles State Historical Park (the FYF fest ‘s location), with them performing every night. And now Alex Ebert has another exciting thing to add to his pedigree: he has scored the forthcoming Robert Redford movie! Redford stars alone in the movie as a man lost at sea, and for this reason there are no dialogue, meaning the music must be very important. Ebert composed and recorded 11 songs for the soundtrack, and to my opinion, when Redford wants you for a movie, you really made it in Hollywood. This is what Ebert had to say about the experience:
‘This project was a dream – an open space to play in but also space to listen to the elements – wind, water, rain, sun, are the story’s other characters to me. I knew I had quite a task ahead of me: to at once allow the elements to sing and to give Redford a voice with which to, once in a while, respond.’
One of the song, ‘Amen’ has been posted on sound cloud, a melancholic string and sparkling piano notes ballad with Ebert’s emotional vocals, slowly sprawling like a boat on open water. It should please a lot of people, and since it’s a Redford movie and an original composition for a film, who knows where this could bring them,… to an Academy Award nomination? Who knows?
You can pre-order the soundtrack on iTunes and here is the complete track list:
01. Excelsior
02. All Is Lost
03. Virginia’s Dream
04. The Infinite Bleed
05. The Invisible Man
06. Pulse of the Weight
07. Dance of the Lilies
08. The Instincts of Boredom
09. Somewhere in the Midnight of Summer
10. Excelsior and the All Day Man
11. Amen