Before he died in August at age 80, Robbie Robertson scored Martin Scorsese’s new movie, Killers of the Flower Moon. Today, Sony Music Masterworks has released the late Band musician’s official soundtrack for the film. Listen to it below.
Killers of the Flower Moon, released in U.S. theaters today (October 20), is based on David Grann’s 2017 book of the same name. The film centers on the murders of Osage people in the 1920s after oil was discovered on tribal land.
Robbie Robertson’s mother was of Mohawk and Cayuga descent, and he was raised on the Six Nations Reserve near Toronto. In a posthumously published press statement, he spoke about the importance of his heritage in composing the movie’s score:
I was gathering pictures in my head of music I heard as a child at the Six Nations Indian Reserve. My relatives are all sitting around with their instruments, and one guy would start a rhythm, and then somebody would start singing a melody to that, and it was just haunting. The feeling of the music beside you like that, humming and droning—the groove and the feel of it got under my skin and it lives there forever.
Robertson added:
I feel that the score is unexpected in many ways and authentic to the heart of the story. For me, it’s kind of perfection to be able to go all the way around this big circle. Starting at Six Nations when music comes along in my life, and then to my history with Martin Scorsese and all the movies leading up to Killers of the Flower Moon. The fact that we’re getting to do a Western in our own way, you really couldn’t have written this. We’re in awe ourselves that our brotherhood has outlasted everything. We’ve been there, we’ve been through it. I am so proud of both our friendship and our work. They have been a gift in my life.
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