PRIMETIME Soundtrack Features Phoebe Bridgers' New Song

A24 Music has released the original soundtrack to PRIMETIME, coinciding with the movie's theatrical release. The soundtrack features the end title song 'On Video' written by Phoebe Bridgers, Jack Antonoff and Christian Lee Hutson and performed by Bridgers, who makes her acting debut in the movie, in addition to 24-tracks of original score by award-winning composer Ari Balouzian.

PRIMETIME is directed by Lance Oppenheim, produced by and starring Robert Pattinson as famed To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen, with Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, and Phoebe Bridgers. The film had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival.

'On Video' marks the first new music from the four-time GRAMMY-winning singer-songwriter since the release of her internationally lauded new album, Lost Weekend, last month as well as the first time she's contributed an original song for the end title of a feature film. The song - a soaring rock track with searing guitars - takes its cues from Balouzian's tense score in creating a visceral and cathartic end to the movie's immersive soundscape.

Bridgers shares, 'When Lance asked me to be in the movie, I was scared I'd be bad at it because I'd never acted before. When he asked me to write a song for it, I had to say yes because I do that.

What's interesting to me about To Catch a Predator, among everything else about it, is how ahead of its time it was. The kind of surveillance the show pioneered is part of everyday life now; not just on the level of the NSA, but in the way we've all become willing participants in surveilling each other for free. So that's what I wrote about.'

Inspired by classic crime and noir scores, this marks Balouzian's latest collaboration with Oppenheim, and their first narrative feature together. The two re-team on A24's YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING, which is set to release in theaters October 16.

'I started working on PRIMETIME after reading the script, and had access to the dailies while they were shooting, so the process started super early,' says Balouzian, who performed and recorded the majority of the score himself, outside of woodwinds and drums, 'Lance and I were able to craft the sound during filming so they could edit to it. The process helped the music become a part of the emotional identity of the movie that the actors and other artisans could actually interact with.'

Throughout production and the edit, Balouzian's score was used to tune the film's slippery tone, oscillating between darkly funny and genuinely harrowing, as the line between performance and reality erodes. 'Ari's music has this ability to feel emotional and sickly at the same time. We wanted it to sound like the network-news-themed version of a noir nightmare.' Oppenheim points to the way performance, image, score, and sound all start to warp together as the film progresses - especially around Robert Pattinson's increasingly frayed Chris: 'As Chris loses his grip, the film flickers among camera formats, and Ari's music evokes the feeling of driving into the abyss.'

Tracklist

Incantations

Encounter

Undressing

The Craft

National Epidemic

Primetime

The Perfect Family

First Day On The Job

Boy Scout

Ambition

Merrygoround

Fan Mail

Trawling

Showtime

BBQ

India 1996

The Search

Ghost Car

Pillory

The Righteous

Head on a Stick

Ace in the Hole

SAG Card

Savior

On Video (Phoebe Bridgers)

About Ari Balouzian

Ari Balouzian is a Los Angeles-based composer, musician and producer who performs as one-third of the acclaimed band Gabriels and is a co-founder of the award-winning music production studio Appraiser (alongside Ryan Hope, also a member of Gabriels).

Balouzian's original film and television scores span narrative and documentary. Select highlights of work include Lance Oppenheim's Some Kind of Heaven (Magnolia), Spermworld (HBO), and RenFaire (HBO); Eric Goode's Monsters of God (HBO); the Alia Shawkat-starrer Atropia (Vertical); and The Turnaround (Netflix) for which Balouzian was Emmy-nominated.

Since releasing their debut EP in 2021, followed by two albums, Balouzian's work in the retro-future soul trio Gabriels has been met with global critical acclaim, earning 5-star reviews from The Guardian and NME, a spot on the BBC Radio 6 Album of the Year List, and a Brit Award nomination. Elton John called their work 'one of the most seminal records I have heard in the last ten years' and David Byrne cited them as one of his biggest current inspirations. Gabriels performed at prestigious venues and festivals worldwide including Walt Disney Concert Hall, Manchester Academy, Coachella, Glastonbury, Primavera Sound Madrid, Summer Sonic Tokyo, and Austin City Limits.

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