A24’s released the official lyric video for ‘Montage’ from the trippy fantasy adventure comedy Swiss Army Man. The song was written and performed by Andy Hull and Robert McDowell of Manchester Orchestra, with the film’s stars Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano also lending their voices to the single. ‘Montage’ is featured on the film’s soundtrack and will be released as a single on June 3, 2016. Co-written and co-directed by Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, Swiss Army Man will open in limited release on June 24th followed by a wide release on July 1st.
Discussing the song, Andy Hull stated, “Last January, I received an email from our good friends, the directing duo Daniels. We had met and fallen in love while working together on our music video for ‘Simple Math’ (the one where they throw me out of a car). They asked if I was interested in writing some songs for a full-length feature they had been working on. I was obviously thrilled at the opportunity and so they sent me the script. It was the craziest story I had ever read and I knew that only these two insanely talented individuals could pull off something this ambitious. I immediately wrote and recorded a song with Robert and sent it to them. I guess we did something right because that was when this 13-month process of scoring our first movie began. There was also one other thing we had to keep in mind. The Daniels didn’t want any real instruments in the movie. Only voices. The idea was that Paul and Daniel’s character would create their own score in their minds. Duh!”
Hull continued, “Anyways, we had to write a lot of the material before the movie was shot so that the actors could sing along while filming. After the movie was shot, we did traditional scoring at our studio, where we watched the footage and added music (voices). Nearly a year after we began working on the movie, we flew to LA to record the final vocals from the actors to really make it sound like this score is taking place inside of a crazy dudes mind. It was and is surreal. The end result is at times really trippy and lonely. There are also songs that have over 100 voices singing and sound outside of anything I thought we would be able to create. What we aimed for was something really beautiful that can evoke emotions without having to always use lyrics or any traditional instrumentation. It’s an up and down journey that parallels the travels and conversations of these two characters. It was easily one of the greatest experiences of our lives. It really pushed and stretched us to think outside of the box and outside of our comfort zone. I’m thrilled that we finally get to share it.”
The Plot: Hank (Paul Dano) is stranded on a deserted island, having given up all hope of ever making it home again. But one day everything changes when a corpse named Manny (Daniel Radcliffe) washes up on shore; the two become fast friends, and ultimately go on an epic adventure that will bring Hank back to the woman of his dreams.
