Michael Abels – Us Soundtrack

The Complete Film Score by Michael Abels

Original Artwork by Edward Kinsella

180-gram Three Stripe Colored Vinyl

Interactive Gatefold Jacket w/ Satin Coating

 

Waxwork Records is proud to present the Us Original Motion Picture Soundtrack featuring a score by composer Michael Abels. Us, released in March 2019, is an original nightmare written, directed and produced by Academy Award®-winning visionary Jordan Peele (Get Out). Set in present day Santa Cruz on the iconic Northern California coastline, the film, starring Oscar® winner Lupita Nyong’o and Black Panther’s Winston Duke, pits an ordinary American family against a terrifying and uncanny opponent: doppelgängers of themselves.

 

A blockbuster that earned raves from critics and audiences alike, Us earned more than $250 million at the worldwide box office to become one the highest grossing R-rated horror films of all time, buoyed by an unexpected and innovative soundtrack and by a groundbreaking, terrifying original score by Abels.

 

Us marks the second collaboration between composer Abels and Peele, who first worked together on Peele’s 2017 Oscar-winning horror film, Get Out. For the Us score, Abels explored themes of duality and discord. “Sonically, what defines ‘scary’ is the unfamiliar,” Abels says. “It is the things that we can’t place, and that we don’t expect, that take us to that place of fear. We wanted to really strike terror into the audience.”

 

Central to the score was the opening track, an anthem for the doppelgängers, known in the film as The Tethered. Abels hit on the idea of using choral elements. “Jordan really loves the sounds of voices, and the human voice is an incredibly expressive instrument that anyone can relate to,” Abels says. “The anthem sounds a little like a march of people preparing for battle, like an uprising maybe, but the sounds are not in a recognizable language. In other parts of the film there are vocal effects, just these strange sounds. They’re designed to really freak people out.”

 

Abels featured a 30 person choir, a third of them children, in the “Anthem,” and implemented Eastern European instruments, violins, percussion and a virtual instrument called a Propanium drum. “It makes this trashy metal sound, but you can also play melodies on it,” Abels said. “The Propanium drum has a sound that’s both otherworldly but not electronic or like science fiction. It’s a sound you can’t quite put your finger on, which is why it works well in this film.”

 

Also included on the soundtrack is the 1995 hip-hop hit “I Got 5 On It” by Luniz and the stand-out track “I Like That” by Janelle Monáe. Abels also helped with a new arrangement of the Luniz hit, which is featured on the soundtrack as the ‘Tethered Mix from Us’.

 

A1 – Michael Abels – Anthem

A2 – Janelle Monáe – I Like That

A3 – Michael Abels – Outernet

A4 – Michael Abels – Spider

A5 – Michael Abels – Ballet Memory

A6 – Luniz – I Got 5 On It

A7 – Michael Abels – Beach Walk

A8 – Michael Abels – First Man Standing

A9 – Michael Abels – Back To The House  

B10 – Michael Abels – Keep You Safe

B11 – Michael Abels – Don’t Feel Like Myself

B12 – Michael Abels – She Tried To Kill Me

B13 – Michael Abels – Boogieman’s Family

B14 – Michael Abels – Home Invasion

B15 – Michael Abels – Once Upon A Time

B16 – Michael Abels – Run

C17 – Michael Abels – Into The Water

C18 – Michael Abels – Spark In The Closest

C19 – Michael Abels – Escape To The Boat

C20 – Michael Abels – Femme Fatale

C21 – Michael Abels – Silent Scream

C22 – Michael Abels – News Report

C23 – Michael Abels – Zora Drives

C24 – Michael Abels – Death Of Umbrae

C25 – Michael Abels – Somber Ride

C26 – Michael Abels – Immolation

C27 – Michael Abels – Down The Rabbit Hole

D28 – Michael Abels – Performance Art

D29 – Michael Abels – Human

D30 – Michael Abels – Battle Plan

D31 – Michael Abels – Pas De Deux

D32 – Michael Abels – They Can’t Hurt You

D33 – Michael Abels – Finale

D34 – Minnie Riperton – Les Fleurs

D35 – Luniz – I Got 5 On It (Tethered Mix From Us)