Animal Collective have composed the original score for A24’s upcoming drama The Inspection – listen to first song ‘Crucible’ below.

The film, which was written and directed by Elegance Bratton, is inspired by Bratton’s real-life experiences. It follows Ellis French, a young Black man who faces homophobia, both at a Marines boot camp and from his family.

The Inspection stars Jeremy Pope as Ellis French, with the rest of the cast including Raúl Castillo, McCaul Lombardi, Aaron Dominguez, Nicholas Logan, Eman Esfandi, Andrew Kai, Aubrey Joseph, Bokeem Woodbine, and Gabrielle Union.

Animal Collective’s Avey Tare said of dreamy track ‘Crucible’, “I wanted us to conjure the feeling of being strong but also showing vulnerability. The desire to ask a community or a loved one to have your back and support you and the expectation that it will happen.”

On working with Animal Collective, Bratton added: “We were very inspired by the music of our composers Animal Collective. We wanted to create the right rhythms to blur the line between what French thinks is real and what is really happening. So those fantasy sequences could serve as the evolution of French’s inner life.

“In essence, we wanted to create a sense of the stir craziness of the monotony of boot camp, juxtaposed with the massive transformation Ellis French undergoes. Animal Collective provides the perfect backdrop to shrink and expand the time according to the emotion.”

The Inspection had its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival in September and is due to be released in the US on November 18. The soundtrack will arrive on the same day and includes a collaboration with Indigo De Souza called ‘Wish I Knew You’.

Animal Collective released their latest studio album, ‘Time Skiffs’, in February. In a four-star review, NME said the band’s new album saw them find their footing once again, after a few records that “were so haywire that things regrettably got lost in the chaos”.

Last month, the band cancelled a planned UK and European tour in support of ‘Time Skiffs’ that was supposed to kick off in Ireland this month, saying in a statement that as they were planning for the tour, they faced “an economic reality that simply does not work and is not sustainable”.

“From inflation, to currency devaluation, to bloated shipping and transportation costs, and much much more, we simply could not make a budget for this tour that did not lose money even if everything went as well as it could,” they continued.