Daniel Blumberg: The Testament of Ann Lee (Original Soundtrack)

"Formed in England in the mid-1600s, the Religious Society of Friends became known for the tremors and convulsions that would overtake its members during prayer. These "quakes" were not, they believed, handed down from on high, but emerged from the inside out-a blasphemy that saw members of the fledgling sect thrown into prison or run out of town. By the time Fleabag made it cool, I'd been attending Quaker meetings for years."

"And nearly omnipresent throughout is the soundtrack by Daniel Blumberg, who brought the rhythms of industrialization and its festering underbelly to 2024's The Brutalist and won an Oscar for it. For Ann Lee, an arthouse musical that counts among its closest antecedents Robert Eggers' The Witch and the Björk-starring Dancer in the Dark, Blumberg reworked and retrofitted 10 traditional Shaker hymns, and recorded Seyfried and the other actors live on set."

Quaker meetings in mid-1600s England involved tremors and convulsions during prayer, understood as internally generated rather than divinely given, provoking persecution. A narrator attended silent Thursday morning meetings in a spartan meetinghouse where participants sat in near-total silence and spoke only if moved. The Testament of Ann Lee depicts Shaker ecstatic practices with contorting, trembling bodies and emphasizes self-denial. Daniel Blumberg crafted a near-constant soundtrack, reworking ten traditional Shaker hymns, recording lead actors live on set, directing nearly 100 singers to evoke speaking-in-tongues vocalizations, and composing original songs, yielding a labor-intensive sonic approach.

Read at Pitchfork