Phoebe Bridgers is making her feature film debut in Primetime, but she’s also helping bring the movie to its final, feverish moments. The Dead Oceans singer/songwriter contributes “On Video,” a guitar-seared original that will play over the end credits of A24’s upcoming film, with the song arriving Sept. 25 alongside a 24-track original score by composer and Gabriels member Ari Balouzian.
The soundtrack marks Bridgers’ first new music since the release of her internationally acclaimed album Lost Weekend, as well as her first original song written specifically for the end title of a feature film. The track takes its cues from Balouzian’s tense, noir-inspired score, turning the musical language of Primetime into something visceral and cathartic as the film reaches its conclusion.
That musical language was already deeply embedded in the movie before Bridgers’ song entered the picture. Balouzian began working on Primetime after reading Lance Oppenheim’s script and had access to the film’s dailies while it was shooting, allowing the composer and director to develop the sound alongside the images. Robert Pattinson, who stars as To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen, even listened to Balouzian’s score on set to help get into character.
Balouzian says he performed and recorded most of the score himself, aside from woodwinds and drums, with the early process allowing the music to become something the cast and crew could interact with during production. Oppenheim describes the result as a “network news-themed version of a noir nightmare,” with the score helping the film oscillate between dark comedy and genuine menace as the distinction between performance and reality begins to dissolve.
For Balouzian, Primetime is another intersection of his work across music, film and television. The Los Angeles-based composer, musician and producer is one-third of the retro-future soul trio Gabriels and co-founded the music-production studio Appraiser with fellow Gabriels member Ryan Hope. His scoring credits include Oppenheim’s Some Kind of Heaven, HBO’s Spermworld and RenFaire, Eric Goode’s Monsters of God, the Alia Shawkat-starring Atropia and Netflix’s The Turnaround, for which he received an Emmy nomination.
Balouzian and Oppenheim are already carrying their musical partnership forward on A24’s You Can See Everything, due later this October.