It’s not an easy thing, getting great music for a no-budget movie.  Like every other aspect of the process–from funding on through post-production–it takes a mix of generosity, passion for the project, and an understanding that the only way to create something special on scant resources is through collaboration.  Oftentimes the only compensation for participating, is a faint swell of pride at seeing how your art, or skill, or tireless effort, contributes to the whole.  

In the case of the following generous, and blisteringly talented musicians, the best we can do at this juncture is try to open a few new ears to their efforts.

All three of these artists will have songs featured in the The Battery.

WISE BLOOD

From Pitchfork: 

“Wise Blood is Chris Laufman, a young guy who lives in Pittsburgh and makes woozy, inward pop songs out of other people’s music. Laufman’s voice is usually the only original element in Wise Blood’s songs. But Laufman’s sample manipulation can turn something like the brontosaurus-stomp drums from Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” into just one element of a funky swirl of a track.”

You can download an E.P at his bandcamp page here for five bucks!  He also has a newer E.P. called These Wings, available on iTunes.

The Parlor (formerly known as We Are Jeneric)

Their Story: 

Many moons ago Eric met Jen in the elevator of a college dormitory.  Now, more than a decade later their music is inspired by the old haunted farmhouse in which they live and the ghosts who occasionally serenade them to sleep.  They are influenced by the sound of church bells, by Jen’s canned apple chutney, and by the wild animals that roam their farmland…

You can grab their brand new album Our Day in the Sun by clicking on these underlined words and be sure to check out these three fantastic earlier albums recorded under their previous moniker, We Are Jeneric.

Chris Eaton, and Rock Plaza Central

What to say about Rock Plaza Central…  They’ve been one of my favorite bands for going on five years now.  I was lucky enough to have seen them live (before their indefinite break from touring) at least a half dozen times, hoofing it in to the city from Connecticut each time they rode through.

When we released our locations video last summer as a teaser, it featured two Rock Plaza Central songs and we noted it in a Twitter post.  Chris Eaton, lead singer of the band, caught wind of it, seemed delighted, and started a conversation that eventually led to him actually recording an original cover of Claude Ely’s classic song Ain’t No Grave (Can Hold My Body Down), specifically for the film.

It was an incredibly gracious gesture from a busy man, to a group of shoestring filmmakers he has never met; a perfect example of the way artists and musicians and filmmakers can connect and collaborate through social networking across the world…

and it plays like gangbusters.

You can buy both of the band’s most recent albums Are We Not Horses and At the Moment of Our Most Needing… on iTunes or at Amazon.  They are both magnificent, lush, gorgeous, haunting, must-own records; each worthy of a song by song dissection that I haven’t the words to write.

There is another, equally excellent record called The World Was Hell to Us that I’m not sure where you can purchase, but I suggest you follow Chris on Twitter or friend him on Facebook so you can politely hound him to sell you a copy.

So please folks, friends, family; shell out a couple clams for these incredible musicians, if for no other reason than to say, with your own hard-earned money, that you appreciate artists who selflessly offer their own work, to help facilitate the goals and dreams and work of others.  Our movie wouldn’t be near as good as it is without their contributions.