Bryce Dessner, guitarist of Ohio rockers The National, has made another foray into the world of soundtrack composition.
The Paris-based musician has been charged by filmmaker Rebecca Miller to provide the score for She Came To Me, a new romantic comedy starring Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway and Marisa Tomei.
Dinklage stars as composer Steven Lauddem, who has lost the creative spark that brought him international acclaim. just weeks before the deadline for his latest commission. At the urging of his ever-patient wife Patricia (Anne Hathaway), he searches for inspiration on the Brooklyn waterfront and finds it in Katrina (Marisa Tomei), a thrill-seeking tugboat captain docked in Red Hook, who soon has Steven questioning everything in his life.
This new work is not, of course, Dessner’s first piece of film scoring.
Described by Steve Reich as “a major voice of his generation”, Dessner is renowned as much for his classical compositions as his work with The National, of which he is co-principal songwriter, along with his twin brother Aaron and the band’s frontman, Matt Berninger.
Previous film credits include The Revenant, The Two Popes and Bardo, and his orchestrations have featured on the albums of leading pop artists including Paul Simon, Bon Iver and Taylor Swift.
Dessner is also a Grammy Award winner, in 2016 for his work ‘Murder Ballades’, which appeared on Eighth Blackbird’s album ‘Filament’, which he also produced and performs on.
This latest soundtrack release will also include a new song from Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa, ‘Addicted to Romance.’ Inspired by the film itself, the song is also written by Springsteen with production by Ron Aniello and Dessner, who called the collaboration the fulfilment of a “lifelong dream.” Miller described Springsteen’s contribution as “a great honour.”
Dessner has cited ‘She Came to Me’ as “one of the most rewarding and creative experiences I have had”. He explained that the partnership allowed him to “make the music that I wanted to make, and so it’s the first film where the music really resembles my music for the concert hall.”
The soundtrack to ‘She Came to Me‘ is available now.
This article originally appeared in the Sheffield Star.