WaterTower Music today announces the release of Digger (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), available now on all major digital streaming platforms. The album features an original score by Cosmo Sheldrake — his first score for a feature film — composed for Academy Award-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Digger, starring Tom Cruise.
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DIGGER Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
A vinyl edition is available to pre-order now through Made by Mutant, pressed on 140gm Eco Vinyl and housed in a gatefold jacket printed on FSC-certified paper stock.
Because the album features many recordings of wildlife, WaterTower Music will make a charitable contribution to EarthPercent in honor of Cosmo Sheldrake and the motion picture Digger.
The Digger (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is available now. Listen HERE.
On Scoring Digger, Cosmo Sheldrake says, “Digger is the first feature film that I have scored, and it has been a vertical learning curve, but an incredible opportunity and quite the adventure. I found myself in the deepest of deep ends immediately, but I enjoyed the challenge.
“I have always loved Alejandro’s films and his use of music and sound, so when he reached out to me last January and asked me to start working on the music for his film starring Tom Cruise, I was very excited. He had heard one of the pieces from my album Wake Up Calls, which is composed entirely out of endangered birdsong, and for him it captured the mood he was looking for — something that had a little sadness but also a lightness to it.
“I adapted a piece called ‘Nightingale, Pt. 1,’ which became ‘Avian Elegy.’ This was the launch pad from which we started exploring the sound world together. The main challenge was finding the right tone: it had to be playful and flirt with absurdity while maintaining some composure.
“I was very happy to be able to work on the music alongside the shooting and editing, as it allowed time for things to emerge in conversation with the picture, and for some of the music to be incorporated into the scenes, for example, the chorus of ‘blah blah blahs’ during the U.N. assembly scene, and the singing submarine pilots. I spent a couple of days on set working with the extras, teaching them their parts and figuring out how to keep them all singing in time.”
As well as traditional orchestration and instrumentation, the soundtrack features many less conventional elements. ‘Avian Elegy’ is composed out of recordings of a nightingale, bittern, ring ouzel, and a long-eared owl. ‘Drowning’ features a humpback whale, a long-horned sculpin, the sound of haddock courting, and a sperm whale echolocating.
“It felt important to acknowledge these other voices and incorporate them in the music,” he continues, “given the themes and subject matter that Digger explores — it is about the ecological and human costs of unbridled greed and extractivism, as well as the political absurdities that facilitate such behaviour.
“I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to work on this movie alongside such incredible people across the board. I have learned so much from Alejandro about the relationship between image and sound, and the strange collaborative alchemy that is filmmaking.”
Director/Writer/Producer Alejandro G. Iñárritu on the score:
“Unlike other films, Digger navigates through different times, spaces, fictions, realities and many layers. Finding the right music and sound for this film was challenging. I heard infinite great possibilities, but nothing felt totally right for Digger. I knew Cosmo’s music and it was a lucky strike when I came across ‘Nightingale,’ and I couldn’t stop listening to it, the piece that later became the opening song of the movie.
“It’s a song he recorded using the birdsong of endangered species around the UK. No instruments at all, just birds. It’s somewhere between sad and melancholic and funny and naïve, with something eerie in it. I immediately knew this is how the film should sound. I called him straight away and we began our journey to find the sound and music of Digger together. I visited him in his studio, and he showed me several sketches of songs he had been working on before I called him.
“Conor O’Neill (editor) and I started working with some of those pieces in the editing room, and it all started falling into place and the road for the score got its compass.
“It was an absolute joy to work with Cosmo and watching him starting a dialogue with the images and bringing his sound and sensibility to the screen for the first time.”
Producer Mary Parent on composer Cosmo Sheldrake:
“When Alejandro first suggested Cosmo Sheldrake and I heard the music, I was blown away, absolutely blown away. It was a really bold choice, because Cosmo had never composed music for a film before. But given how original and specific the film is, the music needed to reflect that; it would be strange with a very straightforward score. And none of Alejandro’s scores are straightforward, but this was a unique situation, given the tone and all the layers of the film. So, when he first shared Cosmo’s music, one song in particular, ‘Nightingale Pt. 1,’ I was like, ‘Wow.’ It was undeniable that Cosmo was a genius and brilliant and would be amazing for this film.
“Cosmo’s done an extraordinary job. I have to give him credit for taking on his first film-composing job on something this intricate and unique, it really says a lot about his talent, because that’s a deep end to jump into. But that’s like a lot of things Alejandro does: taking a very bold and exciting swing that really paid off.”
Digger (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Tracklisting:
1. Avian Elegy
2. Dr. Berg
3. Calving Glacier
4. Solarium
5. Is That a Cow?
6. Grandaddy Oil
7. Fossil Fools
8. Ace in the Hole
9. Amused to Death
10. This Sacred Promise
11. Planetary Devastation
12. Blah Blah Blah
13. Sinking in Chaos
14. Did You Drink All That?
15. Blow It Up
16. Doesn’t Matter
17. Oil Rig
18. Loaves and Fishes
19. Comfort of Your Unsustainable Lives
20. Six Million Barrels a Day
21. Drowning
22. Judy
23. Ifs, Possibles and Coulds
24. Avian Elegy (Reprise)
ABOUT DIGGER
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu returns with his original film Digger, starring Tom Cruise in the title role.
The most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything.
Cruise stars alongside Oscar winner Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Oscar nominee Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Oscar nominee Jesse Plemons.
Iñárritu directed from a screenplay by Iñárritu & Oscar-winners Alexander Dinelaris & Nicolás Giacobone, and Sabina Berman, story by Berman & Iñárritu and Jez Butterworth. The film is produced by Iñárritu, Oscar nominee Mary Parent, Cruise, and executive produced by Joshua Grode.
Joining Iñárritu behind the camera are previous collaborators Oscar-winning director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki; editors Conor O’Neill and Oscar winner Stephen Mirrone; Oscar-nominated costume designer Jacqueline West; Oscar-winning makeup and hair designer Alessandro Bertolazzi; and Oscar-nominated casting director Francine Maisler; along with Oscar-winning production designer Dennis Gassner and production designer Richard Johnson, Oscar-winning prosthetic makeup designer Kazu Hiro, and composer Cosmo Sheldrake.
Warner Bros. Pictures Presents A Legendary Pictures Production, An Alejandro G. Iñárritu Film, Digger, shot entirely in VistaVision and released in theaters and IMAX® across North America on October 2, 2026, and internationally beginning 30 September 2026. It will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.
ABOUT COSMO SHELDRAKE
Cosmo Sheldrake is a multi-instrumentalist performer and composer, live improviser, field recordist and anthropologist. His first album, The Much Much How How and I, came out in 2018.
Subsequent releases include Wake Up Calls (2020), an album composed entirely from recordings of endangered British birds; Wild Wet World (2023), a homage to the ocean created from recordings of whales, seals, fish, snapping shrimp and coral reefs; and Eye to the Ear (2024).
In 2026 he released Come Along, a children’s book illustrated by Liniers and based on his hit song of the same name. Sheldrake is committed to engaging musically with the living world and through his record labels, Tardigrade Records and MOTH Records, has pioneered an approach to sharing royalties, directly returning funds to projects and organisations working to protect the creatures and places that feature in his music. Sheldrake is also a founding donor and ambassador of Earth Percent, a member of the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation, and a core member of the More-Than-Human-Life Program.
In 2024, in collaboration with Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito (MOTH, NYU), Robert MacFarlane, and Giuliana Furci (Fungi Foundation), he released “Song of the Cedars.” A children’s book based on the song will be released in November 2026. Sheldrake created the soundtrack for the film Digger (October 2026), directed by Alejandro Iñárritu and starring Tom Cruise.
ABOUT MUTANT
Mutant is a pop culture art, music, and collectibles shop headed by creative director veterans Spencer Hickman, Eric Garza, Mitch Putnam, and Mo Shafeek and the leadership of CEO Jenny Jacobi. A division of the genre-bending production company SpectreVision and co-founded by Talon Entertainment Finance CEO Steven Demmler and Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League, Mutant is a beacon of creativity and innovation in the realm of art and collectibles. With an unwavering dedication to celebrating underserved fandoms and a profound passion for film, TV, art, music, video games, and pop culture, Mutant’s mission is to captivate and delight enthusiasts worldwide. Mutant collaborates closely with esteemed studio partners such as Disney, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures, Netflix, and independent creators, as well as a diverse array of visual artists and musicians, to curate an unparalleled selection of limited-edition artwork, soundtracks on vinyl, and collectibles that resonate with the hearts and minds of fans. www.madebymutant.com
ABOUT WATERTOWER MUSIC
WaterTower Music, the in-house label for the Warner Bros Discovery companies, releases recorded music as rich and diverse as the companies themselves. It has been the soundtrack home to many of the world’s most iconic films, television shows and games since 2001.
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