Hear Nick Cave & Warren Ellis' Full OST For French Flick 'Loin Des Hommes' ('Far From Men')

Long-time collaborators and experienced cinema composers Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have unveiled their latest joint work for the big screen in the form of the original soundtrack for new French film Loin Des Hommes (Far From Men), which theMusic.com.au is privileged to be streaming today ahead of its release Down Under.

Due to hit digital and physical stores this Friday, 15 May, via Kobalt, the soundtrack is built largely around violin loops recorded by Ellis, with piano forming the second major sonic cornerstone as elements of guitar, flute, mandolin, celeste, percussion and other instruments drift in and out. This method of building on pre-existing loops was a fresh step for the two veterans, which Cave describes in a statement as "suddenly an amazing way to write because you didn't have to do things from scratch".

"Warren would put on a loop that would create this instant atmosphere, and we could go off and work on top of that. To sit at a piano, put chords onto a linear loop and make something out of that is just an easy and very pleasurable way to work."

Ease and pleasure are probably good things to have in a working partnership that has not only taken in acclaimed stints in The Bad Seeds and Grinderman but several successful film scores before this one, including contributing to or composing music for films including The Proposition (2005), The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (2007), The Road (2009) and Lawless (2012).   

"Very often a tension can happen between music and picture that is about chance and a kind of unknowingness that can be really amazing," Cave said in a statement.

"Just by putting together two things that were created in isolation, music and film, suddenly something quite magical can happen."

Loin Des Hommes, directed by David Oelhoffen, was a triple prizewinner at 2014's Venice film festival, and stars Viggo Mortensen as a French schoolteacher  and Reda Kateb as the murderer he agrees to escort to trial.

Australian screening details are not presently available, though the film was released online on 14 April. A limited US cinema run for the film began on 1 May.