Jed Kurzel

Born in the rural South Australian settlement of Gawler, Jed Kurzel works as a vocalist, songwriter, guitarist and composer for the screen, best recognised as the originator of the garage-rock pair the Mess Hall and for the extensive catalogue of soundtracks he has created, above all those attached to features helmed by his sibling Justin Kurzel. During the closing years of the 1990s he moved to Sydney, where in 2001 he assembled the drum-and-guitar outfit the Mess Hall alongside percussionist Cec Condon. Drawing from Midwestern American blues-rock and the rhythm-driven garage style popularised by contemporary groups including the Black Keys, the White Stripes and Death from Above 1979, the pair released several well-received albums and EPs across the decade, most prominently the long-awaited 2005 set Notes from a Ceiling. Their third full-length release, Devil’s Elbow, captured the Australian Music Prize in 2007.

Kurzel first entered film scoring after his brother asked him to furnish music for the latter’s directorial debut, the 2011 crime drama Snowtown. Both the picture and its accompanying score achieved recognition, resulting in Kurzel receiving the Feature Film Score of the Year honour for that work. Throughout the remainder of the 2010s he supplied scores for additional features, among them the 2014 thriller Son of a Gun, the horror success The Babadook from the same year, and the 2015 independent Western Slow West. In later projects he contributed to higher-profile releases, including Justin Kurzel’s 2015 cinematic version of Macbeth and, at the invitation of Ridley Scott, the score for the 2017 Prometheus follow-up and Alien prequel Alien: Covenant.