Mastodon Hex

June 17th, 2010

Grant Trimboli

Following the June 18th opening of the feature film Jonah Hex, Reprise Records will release a 6-track EP from Mastodon from the film’s original motion picture score Jonah Hex on June 29th, 2010.

Jonah Hex features an original score by Reprise recording artists Mastodon and Oscar®-nominated composer Mario Beltrami (The Hurt Locker, 3:10 to Yuma). Mastodon were asked to create the score personally by the film’s director, Jimmy Hayward who was inspired by repeated listenings of Mastodon’s 2006 album Blood Mountain. “Jimmy called us out of the blue as a fan,” bassist Troy Sanders told Paste magazine in an interview. “It was the most beautiful, authentic way to collaborate.”

Reprise Records will also release an exclusive EP of six of Mastodon’s tracks from the film Jonah Hex score on June 29th. For their first film scoring experience Mastodon recorded the tracks for Jonah Hex by viewing movie footage and actually composing the score spontaneously on the spot in the studio. This method of experimental and immediate composition proved to be a daring, daunting and ultimately fun way of creating music together over a short period of time. The resulting sessions yielded incredibly exciting results produced in a completely different way than they normally would approach writing and recording for a Mastodon album. Fans will get a chance to hear the four new tracks: “Death March,” “Clayton Boys,” “Indian Theme,” and “Train Assault” with two bonus versions as they become available through iTunes and all other digital outlets.

Globally-celebrated and critically-revered hard-rock masterminds Mastodon have created one of the most daring and highly praised albums in recent years with their current and fifth full-length effort, Crack the Skye, which entered the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart at #11. Following a spate of late-night TV appearances and a pair of groundbreaking Roboshobo-directed videos, the band toured the world non-stop following the album’s March 2009 release. Crack the Skye placed on numerous “Year End / Best of 2009” critics lists and readers polls, including an impressive No. 8 entry on the prestigious Village Voice Annual Pazz & Jop Critics Poll’s “Top 25 Albums of 2009” list. Time magazine placed it third on its list of the top ten “Best Albums of 2009,” writing, “Thunderous, disciplined and expansive…the ambition and tenacity of Mastodon’s music makes Crack The Skye sonically unforgettable.” In recent months Mastodon has performed on their own, co-headlined with Dethklok and toured Europe and Latin America with Metallica, further expanding their notoriety as a peerless live force of nature.