Soundtrack News: WaterTower Music Releases ‘TNT’s ‘Animal Kingdom’ Original Series Soundtrack’

WaterTower Music is excited to announce the release of the TNT Original Series Soundtrack for the Warner Bros. Television crime-drama Animal Kingdom, composed by Alexis Marsh & Samuel Jones. The album debuted on July 9, 2021, ahead of the Season 5 premiere Sunday, July 11 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on TNT.

Composing duo Alexis Marsh & Samuel Jones began their career collaborating with rising filmmakers in Los Angeles after graduating from USC’s Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program in 2010. Their first feature film score, for Jocelyn Towne’s I Am I, introduced a DIY aesthetic of recording and performing each instrument at their home studio while marking their emergence as songwriters and producers with the film’s main title song, ‘Chances (Gone Too Soon)’. The two multi-instrumentalists have since contributed music ranging in style from electronic minimalism to lush orchestral for feature films (We’ll Never Have Paris, Lila & Eve, Preservation, Equity, Next Gen), TV shows (TNT’s Animal Kingdom, HBO’s Sesame Street), documentaries (Ingrid, 20 Years of Madness, Looking at the Stars), art installations (Alex Israel’s KBRZ The Breeze, As It Lays) and advertising campaigns (Pinterest, Glossier, Rimowa).

Animal Kingdom centers on a Southern California family, whose excessive lifestyle is fueled by their criminal activities. When J Cody (Finn Cole) moves in with his estranged grandmother Janine “Smurf” Cody and her freewheeling sons – Andrew “Pope” (Shawn Hatosy), Craig (Ben Robson) and Deran (Jake Weary) – he quickly learns the reason he’s been shielded from them for years. Smurf and her boys make their living through carefully planned armed robberies and other criminal activities. In order to survive in this world, J must prove his loyalties to the Cody crime family.

This 19-track Animal Kingdom album, composed by Marsh & Jones, features original music selects from Seasons 1 through 4, including ‘Big Love,’ the series main title theme from composers Atticus Ross & Claudia Sarne.

Marsh & Jones comment on the show’s music:

“It’s a lot of fun to translate metaphors and adjectives into music. In developing the sound of the Animal Kingdom score, the producers used words like ‘muscular,’ ‘broken glass,’ ‘jagged,’ and our collective favorite ‘bilious contempt’ – which we still laugh about five years on. Each season we’ve pushed the score into new areas of what those descriptors could sound like by using pedals, modular synths, or extreme digital manipulations to shape the sound of recorded drums, guitar, and bass.”

They continue:

“The overarching direction has always been to make it unsettling. The essential tension for us is in contrasting how successful the Codys are when they work together with how self-destructive they are when they break off from the family – how they all crave independence at various points, but then make these agonizing choices that only bind them tighter to one another. We have to balance musical elements carefully to avoid sentimentality, convey the seriousness of the situations, but also allow for moments of relief and levity so the pressure doesn’t become overwhelming.”

TRACK LISTING
1. Big Love (Main Title Theme – Atticus Ross & Claudia Sarne)
2. Julia’s Room
3. Biking
4. Cutback
5. Ms. Anderson
6. Paintball
7. New Canticle
8. 3 Of Us, 2 Of You
9. Boarding
10. I Forgive You
11. Don’t Cry
12. The Family Cut
13. Let Go
14. Tank
15. Pierce(d)
16. Into The Black
17. Bullpen
18. Didn’t Think You Had It In You
19. All Points Bulletin