Following the June 18th opening of the feature film Jonah Hex, Reprise Records will release a 6-track EP from Mastodon from the film’s original motion picture score Jonah Hex on June 29th, 2010.
Jonah Hex features an original score by Reprise recording artists Mastodon and Oscar-nominated composer Mario Beltrami (The Hurt Locker, 3:10 to Yuma). Mastodon were asked to create the score personally by the film’s director, Jimmy Hayward who was inspired by repeated listenings of Mastodon’s 2006 album Blood Mountain. “Jimmy called us out of the blue as a fan,” bassist Troy Sanders told Paste magazine in an interview. “It was the most beautiful, authentic way to collaborate.”
Reprise Records will also release an exclusive EP of six of Mastodon’s tracks from the film Jonah Hex score on June 29th. For their first film scoring experience Mastodon recorded the tracks for Jonah Hex by viewing movie footage and actually composing the score spontaneously on the spot in the studio. This method of experimental and immediate composition proved to be a daring, daunting and ultimately fun way of creating music together over a short period of time. The resulting sessions yielded incredibly exciting results produced in a completely different way than they normally would approach writing and recording for a Mastodon album. Fans will get a chance to hear the four new tracks: “Death March,” “Clayton Boys,” “Indian Theme,” and “Train Assault” with two bonus versions as they become available through iTunes and all other digital outlets.
