When Moses Sumney was first approached about working on the music for the film adaptation of playwright Aleshea Harris’ Is God Is, his initial response was an immediate, resounding no.
“I never wanted to score movies,” the lauded indie singer-songwriter and actor tells The Hollywood Reporter with a light chuckle. “I’ve scored short films and it’s always been a lovely experience, but even just from that, I’m always like, “OK, this is really hard.”
Then he read the script, and his tone quickly changed. “It was just so undeniably brilliant,” Sumney says, deciding to make the leap into the world of film composition. “I had a meeting with Aleshea early on, and I could see that she was such a brilliant mind.”
Sumney was familiar with Is God Is, and its story of two twin girls seeking out revenge against their father, before the music offer. He recalls having first met Harris a few years ago at the home of fellow playwright Jeremy O. Harris (no relation), back when she was receiving praise for the play. In his initial conversations with Aleshea Harris after signing on, Sumney says the director “made it clear this was a version of the American Western.”
“She was inspired by Western films, and of course, Tarantino revenge flicks,” Sumney says. “But what was interesting about this Western was that every character is Black, and it traverses through the American South. I was really interested synthesizing the sounds of the American South with the concept of heading west.”
The result, a collaboration with Joseph Shirley — whose composer credits include The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett and Creed III — is a beautiful, winding soundtrack that weaves between whistling, clapping Americana, gospel-like hymns and spiritual delta blues. The vibe’s perhaps a bit darker than the classic cowboy flick — Sumney says they were “trying to tap into a sense of ethereality in the movie” — but the whole score still has a reference that befits an old Spaghetti Western.
“It was largely about making choices that aren’t obvious,” Sumney says. “Me and Joe Shirley decided early on that a great identity for the soundtrack would be to build a lot of the sounds out of my voice.”
Sumney himself admits he wasn’t particularly versed in the Western genre before he started working on the music, adding that he needed to familiarize himself but also used his lack of expertise to his advantage as he sought to avoid getting “too referential.” Sumney’s vocals and hums add depth and a certain malleable vibey-ness, and it doesn’t hurt that vocals are more cost-effective than a full-on suite of musicians.
“This was an intimately made film, which is to say it had an intimate budget,” Sumney chuckles. “We couldn’t do the classic film thing of scoring and bringing in a chamber group or an orchestra. I think the limitations of it really made made me look within. We are looking to our bodies to make the sounds. Scratching the ground, hitting the ground, hitting my body.”
Sumney says he and Shirley had complementary artistic senses, with Shirley’s honed from years of traditional composer work while his own came influenced from indie music production. “Joseph comes from a world of really grand films, and so he was always thinking about how to make things bigger,” Sumney says. “I was always thinking about how to make things smaller, and I think that those sort of two perspectives really combined to make the soundtrack what it is.”
In a statement, Shirley called working with Sumney “an utterly captivating and life affirming creative experience for me.”
“His connection to music is so intuitive, mythic yet still very tactile and progressive,” Shirley said. “We explored many genres and moods together, in helping shape Aleshea Harris’ poignant story on the twins’ journey into the belly of the beast. An honor to work alongside him, and to work on this film with Aleshea, is an understatement.”
With Is God Is completed, Sumney’s non-committal when asked if he’d want to score another film, noting in particular the challenges that come with “serving someone else’s vision,” rather than only focusing on executing his own. Maybe it’d only take the right project again.
“We’ll see, it can be very daunting for someone like me, I’m so used to being self-employed,” Sumney says. “What I’ll say is I’m really proud of the work that Joe and I did on the score, and I learned a lot from him and from Aleshea. I’m focused on getting this out into the world. We’ll see how I feel in the future.”
