Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross Announce Future Ruins Festival For Film & TV Composers

As the large-scale corporate music festival model continues to weaken and the number of such events decline, we’ve really enjoyed seeing smaller, niche, and/or boutique festivals reimagining the possibilities of what could be through innovative formats and programming. Today, a brand new one has been announced with some big names behind it and some undisputed legends tied to the lineup.

Founded by longtime collaborators, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the innaugural Future Ruins festival will be a day-long event with 3 stages and a focus on film and television scores, soundtracks, and compositions. Outside of Ross and Reznor‘s work in Nine Inch Nails, the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame inductees have made their mark as an Oscar, Grammy, and Golden Globe Award winning team composing music for such notable projects as The Social Network, Watchmen, and SOUL. For their inaugural event, the pair has stacked the lineup with groundbreaking film score pioneers like John Carpenter and Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin. One thing that I’m particularly psyched to notice is the inclusion of both Danny Elfman (Oingo Boingo) and Mark Mothersbaugh (DEVO) who composed the Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and Pee-Wee’s Playhouse themes, respectively. Both range and depth with be on full display with artists ranging from Questlove to Robert AA Lowe (Lichens, OM, 90 Day Men, Singer). Just based on the names involved, it’s clear that this is a true labor of love where the organizers have shot for the moon to assemble the bill of their dreams.

Check out a full list of scheduled acts after the following description taken from the festival website.

“Future Ruins is a first-of-its-kind music festival: a day-long event where the world’s most influential film and television composers step out from behind the screen and onto the stage.

Set across three stages at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, Future Ruins is designed to feel thoughtful and immersive, bringing this music to light in an environment where it has never been heard before. Every artist is a headliner, each with their own specially curated moment. Each artist is encouraged to take big swings and reimagine their work for a live audience. Ranging from electronic sets and live bands to orchestral performances, fans have the chance to experience live debuts from composers who rarely appear onstage.

This one-time line up is not just a music festival — it’s a cinematic ceremony, a deep dive into sound and story, and a historic first for Los Angeles.”

Festival Lineup

Cristobal Tapia de Veer
(Babygirl, Smile, The White Lotus, Black Mirror, Utopia (UK), Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams, Ponyboi, The Third Day, National Treasure (UK),The Girl With All The Gifts, Humans)

Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow
(Ex Machina, Civil War, Men, Drokk, Annihilation, Luce, Free Fire, Black Mirror, Devs)

Danny Elfman
(Batman, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, Men in Black, Good Will Hunting, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, Big Fish, Alice In Wonderland, Spider-Man, Milk)

Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin
(Suspiria, Profondo Rosso/Deep Red, Dawn of the Dead, Demons, Tenebrae, Phenomena, Opera)

HILDUR GUðNADÓTTIR
(Joker, Chernobyl, A Haunting in Venice, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Mary Magdalene, Tár, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Women Talking, Hedda)

(a performance of
Howard Shore’s
score of David Cronenberg’s Crash)

Isobel Waller-Bridge
(Munich: The Edge of War, Emma., Black Mirror, I Came By, Wicked Little Letters, Fleabag, The Lesson, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, Magpie, Sweetpea)

John Carpenter
(Halloween, They Live, The Thing, Christine, Escape From New York)

Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein
(Stranger Things, Lost in the Night, The Hole in the Fence, Spheres, Native Son, Butterfly, Retaliators, Valley of the Boom)

Mark Mothersbaugh
(The Life Aquatic, The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, Rugrats, The Lego Movie, A Minecraft Movie, Cocaine Bear, Thor: Ragnarok)

Questlove
(performing the score works of Curtis Mayfield)

Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe
(Candyman, Master, Telemarketers, The Color of Care, Grasshopper Republic, Power, Unvion, Seeds, Life After)

Tamar-kali
(Mudbound, Shirley, The Assistant, The Fire Inside, The Last Thing He Wanted, Come Sunday, Palmer, The Lie, Little Richard: I am Everything)

Terence Blanchard
(BlacKkKlansman, Malcolm X, Inside Man, Da 5 Bloods, When the Levees Broke, One Night in Miami, The Woman King, Perry Mason)

Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
(The Social Network, Watchmen, Gone Girl, Soul, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Challengers, Empire of Light, Waves, The Vietnam War, Mank, The Killer)

Volker Bertelmann AKA Hauschka
(All Quiet on the Western Front, Conclave, Lion, The Amateur, Dune: Prophecy, The Day of the Jackal, Hollywoodgate, Adrift, War Sailor, The Old Guard, Stowaway, Patrick Melrose)

Tickets for Future Ruins go on sale Wednesday, May 21st at 12pm PST.
Standard GA and VIP tickets will be available for purchase through HERE.