The Subtle Art of Not Giving a #@%! Soundtrack Album Announced

Karl Sölve Steven (Come to Daddy, The Justice of Bunny King, Black Hands, The Girl on the Bridge, Bellbird) will release a soundtrack album for the documentary The Subtle Art of Not Giving a #@%!. The album features the composer’s original score from the film, as well as the opening piece Momento Mori by Steven and Mark Perkins (aka Merk). The soundtrack will be released digitally on August 4. Check back on this page to listen to Momento Mori (coming out as the album’s lead single on July 28) and for the pre-order link. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a #@%! directed by Nathan Price is based on Mark Manson’s New York Times best-selling book of the same name and is being described as “a cinematic documentary designed to help us become less awful people.” The documentary was released in select theaters and on VOD this past January by Universal Pictures (in collaboration with Abramorama).

Here’s the album track list:

1. Momento Mori – Karl Steven & Mark Perkins (3:04)
2. Hedonic Treadmill (3:19)
3. Don’t Try (2:33)
4. Happiness Is a Problem (2:10)
5. Things Fall Apart (1:48)
6. The Choice (2:00)
7. You’re Wrong About Everything (2:09)
8. Responsibility (1:16)
9. Pain Is Part of the Process (1:57)
10. Something Beyond Ourselves (2:05)
11. Architects of Our Own Beliefs (2:26)
12. The Sunny Side of Death (1:20)

Karl says of the project, “when I’m on a film I’m usually collaborating with other musicians and engineers and the work sort of pulls me out into the wider world in an enjoyable way. The Subtle Art is different in that there’s really only one person in the story, and in that the journey draws us deeper and deeper into their interior world, so with that as my guide I decided to isolate myself in my studio, draw solely on my own creative resources and (limited) skills, and try going ever further’ inwards and downwards’ rather than reaching ‘up and out’. This involved rediscovering and combining neglected instruments in new ways, and was the first time I’ve used modular synths and aleatoric looping extensively on a soundtrack. This also meant that it was a welcome relief to collaborate with Mark Perkins (aka Merk) on the opening track. We must have made a whole album’s worth of material before settling on the final piece but it was a blast!”