There are plenty of famous examples of film soundtrack artists improvising their score while screening the source material for the first time, such as Neil Young’s angst-ridden coat of reverb that pairs eerily well with Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man. Yet King Khan took the opposite approach while penning what would become the musical accompaniment to Prichard Smith’s new documentary spotlighting the rise of the Memphis Black power group the Invaders during the civil rights movement.
“The Mighty Hannibal taught me an amazing lesson about blindness,” Khan shares, referring to the late R&B legend. “[He] sent me a gospel song he wrote about how lucky he was to have gone blind because he could never judge anyone based on what they looked like—rather it was now by their actions. When he told this to me I decided to do the entire soundtrack ‘blind.’ This meant I made the music without seeing the images.”
The film’s soundtrack is slated to be released August 18 via Ernest Jenning Recording Co. and Khannibalism, with the first sample arriving today in the form of “John B’s Lament”—referring to Invaders leader John B. Smith. It’s a crunchy bit of guitar-focused improv that recalls the mischievous rock sounds of the period the doc spotlights, while hewing close to much of the garage-rock icon’s two decades of consistent output under various guises.
Continuing on about the film itself, Khan adds: “The Invaders film is not just a documentary, it’s a hardcore lesson to all activists to put in the work and find out what every community needs, addressing these individual needs and simply caring for the wounds that rot when ignored. Before you wallow in self-pity and misery, take a deep breath and learn to breathe. Just a simple act of inhalation and exhalation is what brings us back to reality and calms our nerves and prepares us for the task at hand.”
Sample the first cut of the OST below, and pre-order the record here.
