Milan Records today releases Bugonia (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) with music by Academy Award-nominated producer, multi-instrumentalist and composer Jerskin Fendrix. Available everywhere now, the album is the latest in an ongoing creative partnership between Fendrix and director Yorgos Lanthimos following their work together on the director's previous two films, Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness. For Bugonia, Fendrix has crafted a soundscape brimming with sweeping strings, bold brass, thundering percussion and dramatic crescendos, culminating in a grandiose and, at times, bombastic sonic companion to the high-stakes mission at the heart of the film from Focus Features. Today's album is also set for a deluxe vinyl release via Waxwork Records, arriving on 180-gram black vinyl and housed in an old-style tip gatefold jacket featuring built-in pages, artwork and design by Vasilis Marmatakis. Bugonia debuts in theaters nationwide today from Focus Features.
Similar to their workflow on Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness, Fendrix and Lanthimos began their third collaboration prior to the film's production, with Fendrix recording much of the music based solely on conversations with the director as a guide. "For Bugonia, Yorgos did not allow me to see the script, or know anything about the film apart from the three words 'Bees,' 'Basement' & 'Spaceship,'" recalls Fendrix of the process. "All of the music is derived from my research on these three areas and seeing how much connective tissue they might have, mainly in a structural/systemic/geometric sense and in regard to some ideas about altitudes."
Decided early on, however, was the idea to utilize a symphony orchestra throughout the score, prompting a two-day recording session with the London Contemporary Orchestra at the legendary Air Studios with Fendrix conducting. "It was a 90-piece orchestra in one room, which is a very big sound," Fendrix says. "And they're up for playing around, they're up for experimenting, they're up for embarrassing themselves musically, which not a lot of orchestras are. So being able to play with an orchestra that has that standard, but also that flexibility, which I was able to draw some more unusual, more provocative sounds out of, was an absolute joy."
The 15-track album features the full orchestral pieces written by Fendrix prior to the film's production, expanded versions of music the composer says arrive, "without much of the butchering that necessarily happens in the film editing process." The result is a larger-than-life body of music overflowing with energy, emotion and orchestral power. Within the film, the music adds a gritty edge that rings true to the conspiracy-obsessed men and their mad kidnapping scheme, while at the same time retains the gravitas to reflect the seriousness of a potentially incoming apocalypse.