March 12, 2022
Soundtrack to A.I. Drama AFTER YANG Released – Score by Aska Matsumiya with contribution from Ryuichi Sakamoto
Milan Records has released the original motion picture soundtrack to AFTER YANG, featuring an original score by Aska Matsumiya and a contribution from Ryuichi Sakamoto. Based on the short story “Saying Goodbye to Yang” from the book Children of the New World by Alexander Weinstein, the film is A24’s newest science fiction drama; taking place in a near future: when his young daughter’s beloved companion – an android named Yang – malfunctions, Jake (Colin Farrell) searches for a way to repair him. In the process, Jake discovers the life that has been passing in front of him, reconnecting with his wife (Jodie Turner-Smith) and daughter across a distance he didn’t know was there. Inspired by the film’s futuristic setting and subject matter, Matsumiya utilized A.I. technology throughout her scoring process, feeding both her own compositions and Sakamoto’s contribution into a special A.I.-driven software developed by Luke Fischbeck (of Lucky Dragons) that generated infinite musical variations.
Of the soundtrack, composer Matsumiya says, “In terms of instrumentation, the score consists of piano, cello, marimbas and lots of synths… the concept was that we wanted to make sure that the sound was both new and futuristic, but also very human at the same time. We wanted to create a sort of paradox, echoing the sentiment that in the future, often what we actually want is to be more human and return to the essence of humanity. Which is why we ended up mixing the very human-like, warm instrumentation with the more futuristic synth work and A.I. variations.”
AFTER YANG is available now in theaters and streaming on Showtime. The soundtrack is available at these links.
Watch the film’s trailer:
