Featuring New Music by Lord Huron and Blake Mills,
Songs by Dwight Yoakam, Chatham County Line, Tim Grimm.
With Original Score Composed By Nathan Larson
Varèse Sarabande will release the A WALK IN THE WOODS – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally on September 4 and on CD September 25, 2015. The album features the new songs “The Birds Are Singing At Night” performed by Lord Huron and “Dead End Street” performed by Blake Mills, with songs from Dwight Yoakam, Chatham County Line, Tim Grimm, and additional tracks from Lord Huron. The album also features two suites of the original score, composed by Nathan Larson (BOYS DON’T CRY, the band Shudder To Think).
In this new comedy adventure, celebrated travel writer, Bill Bryson (Academy Award® winner Robert Redford), instead of retiring to enjoy his loving and beautiful wife (Academy Award® winner Emma Thompson), and large and happy family, challenges himself to hike the Appalachian Trail – 2,190 miles of America’s most unspoiled, spectacular and rugged countryside from Georgia to Maine. The peace and tranquility he hopes to find, though, is anything but, once he agrees to being accompanied by the only person he can find willing to join him on the trek – his long lost and former friend Katz (Academy Award® nominee Nick Nolte), a down-on-his-luck serial philanderer who, after a lifetime of relying on his charm and wits to keep one step ahead of the law – sees the trip as a way to sneak out of paying some debts and sneak into one last adventure before its too late. The trouble is, the two have a completely different definition of the word, “adventure”. Now they’re about to find out that when you push yourself to the edge, the real fun begins.
“Our biggest musical challenge was how to represent the majesty of the Appalachian Trail, its jaw-dropping vistas, its forbidding mountains and blessedly untamed wildlife,” said director Ken Kwapis. “The answer came in the form of Lord Huron, whose songs provide a thread throughout Bryson and Katz’s journey.”
“I tend to approach songwriting visually, and I often find myself striving and struggling to describe landscapes sonically,” said Lord Huron’s Ben Schneider. “It was gratifying to hear that some of that came across to Ken and his team, and that they felt the music helped support and describe the natural setting of the movie.”
“The subtitle of Bill Bryson’s book is Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail.’ In wildly different ways, all the artists on this CD are rediscovering America’s musical past, uncovering its roots and celebrating them with a distinctly modern vibe,” Kwapis described. “All of these artists are venturing down an alternative musical trail, but it’s one that runs right alongside the AT itself.”
“A WALK IN THE WOODS felt warmly familiar to me, like a movie I’d already loved for a long time,” said Blake Mills, who contributed the original song “Dead End Street” for the film and soundtrack.
“Bryson and Katz may be in their autumnal years, but the musical world of the film suggests there’s a new adventure right around the corner,” said Kwapis. “Check out the rambunctious husband-and-wife duo Shovels & Rope, the soulful bluegrass of Raleigh-based Chatham County Line, the virtuosic Blake Mills (his warm and wistful “Dead End Street” was written for the film), the genre-defying Great Lake Swimmers, Honky Tonk pioneer Dwight Yoakam and his rousing salute to Buck Owens, Indiana’s Renaissance man Tim Grimm, the dynamic country trio Friends of Lola, and the amazingly versatile rocker-turned-film-composer Nathan Larson.”
ABOUT NATHAN LARSON
NATHAN LARSON (Composer) cut his teeth in the hardcore punk scene in Washington D.C., where he played in seminal bands (such as Swiz). Larson relocated to New York City in 1988, and in the ‘90s he was the lead guitarist for the influential prog-punk outfit Shudder To Think. Larson is a producer, performer and writer of music and prose, but his primary focus has been composing film scores. His first project as a solo composer was the film BOYS DON’T CRY, although as a band, Shudder To Think scored the film HIGH ART and contributed songs to Todd Haynes’ VELVET GOLDMINE prior to this.
In 2000, Larson recorded a solo record in London with producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley (Madness, Elvis Costello).
Musical projects of late include A Camp, which is a collaborative project with his wife Nina Persson. As a producer, he recently wrapped on the sophomore solo outing from James Iha, and The Citizen’s Band.
In 2005, Commotion Records released a CD overview of Larson’s work entitled Filmmusik.
Larson is also a published author. His first novel, entitled The Dewey Decimal System, was released May 2011 on Akashic Books. The second book in the series, entitled The Nervous System, was released summer of 2012.
Larson lives in Harlem, New York City with his wife and son, Nils Oskar. The family also maintains a home in Persson’s native Sweden.
ABOUT LORD HURON
Ben Schneider conjured LORD HURON (Featuring Music by) from the depths of Lake Huron during a trip to his family home in northern Michigan in 2010. Ancient memories, smoke over the moon and nights full of perilous laughter all bolstered the brew from which Lord Huron emerged. Ben brought Lord Huron back with him to Los Angeles, where strange young things are known to flourish, unhindered.
As the songs grew, so did the need for a band to play them. Answering the call ringing out from California, grand brethren from years past, friends and fellow Michiganders, Mark Barry, Miguel Briseno and Tom Renaud, left their respective paths, or bent each road to their own will, to reconvene out west. An old crew reformed in a new harbor.
After a pair of EPs, a debut album, Lonesome Dreams, saw release in 2012. Tours followed that found the boys in blistering deserts, reveling in sinister paradises, wandering frozen coasts and lost among the hanging fog of bygone forests. Who can say but the soles of their shoes how far they travelled and how wide?
In 2014, trail-weary but intrepid, Lord Huron set up camp deep in Los Angeles at Whispering Pines Studios to notch their latest songs and abet the journeys of others. Lord Huron released the next chapter of their adventures, Strange Trails, in April 2015.
TRACKLIST
1. Mud – Nathan Larson
2. Dead End Street – Blake Mills
3. The Birds Are Singing At Night – Lord Huron
4. Tickin’ Bomb – Shovels & Rope
5. Crop Comes In – Chatham County Line
6. The Lake – Tim Grimm
7. The Ghost On The Shore – Lord Huron
8. I Don’t Care (Just As Long As You Love Me) – Dwight Yoakam
9. Kissed Me Like Thunder – Friends Of Lola
10. She Lit A Fire – Lord Huron
11. Think That You Might Be Wrong – Great Lake Swimmers
12. So Many Stars – Nathan Larson
13. Brother (Last Ride) – Lord Huron
14. Ends Of The Earth – Lord Huron
