It may occur to those who see the award-winning indie smash (and aptly titled) Everything Everywhere All at Once that Son Lux's nearly two-hour soundtrack album is so symbiotic with the film's improbable, action-packed, threatening, heart-rending multiverse that it likely wouldn't hold up well on its own. It's impressive, then, to find that the score -- parts structured music, diegetic ambience, and noisy sound effects -- works as well as it does as music. Over three years in the making, bandmembers Ryan Lott, Ian Chang, and Rafiq Bhatia -- all composers in their own right -- worked individually and together on the score under the guidance of the film's directors, Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert). Entailing over 100 music cues, the final recording consists of 49 tracks, including a handful of songs and collaborative instrumentals. Among the eclectic songs are the tender pop single "This Is a Life" by Son Lux, Mitski, and David Byrne, the sinuous "Fence" with Moses Sumney, jaunty "Now We're Cookin'" with none other than Randy Newman and Harry Shum, Jr., and the glitchier "Sucked into a Bagel" featuring actress Stephanie Hsu. Other, more compositional collaborations include several tracks with Nina Moffitt, including the otherworldly "Jobu Tupaki," pieces with Outkast's Andre Benjamin, and "Opera Fight," which joins Son Lux's warped atmospheres with vocalist Surrija and chamber sextet yMusic. A recurring classical theme, Debussy's Clair de Lune, is woven into segments of the score, including an eerie (treated) piano performance by jazz pianist Chris Pattishall. The vast majority of the score, however, consists of the trio's alternately ominous, sentimental, explosive, and spontaneous electro-chamber-rock creations, which distort traditional instruments into something alien and partly mechanical while, like their band albums, never fully detaching from organic matter. Both urgent and seeming to pause for a breath at once, the over-seven-minute "Come Recover (Empathy Fight)," for instance, floats gentle and percussive piano phrases over reverberating HVAC-type noises, melodic violin, and dissonant, unidentifiable shimmer before harp, manipulated drum kit, and eventual pulsing beats, distorted woodwinds, and group vocals join in. It's a track that could have appeared on Son Lux's Tomorrows trilogy of albums (2020-2021) but is tailored to the film's scene, operating as score as well as in-story effects. Even a track with a title like "What a Fast Elevator!" works as a warped chamber piece -- pan flute, ambient percussion, edited instrument samples, and all. Son Lux's part in Everything Everywhere All at Once may or may not have raised the game in scoring as much as the joyously absurdist film has defied limitations in storytelling, but at the very least, it's a brilliant pairing. ~ Marcy Donelson