Justin Timberlake and Marcus Mumford have recorded music together for the new Coen brothers movie, Inside Llewyn Davis. News of the pop-folk collaboration comes as Mumford & Sons describe plans to change their sound and make their third album a "departure".
It's not really a bombshell that Timberlake is contributing to the soundtrack for Inside Llewyn Davis: the singer already has an acting role in the film, playing a character called Jim Berkey. But Mumford's involvement – and the Timberlake team-up – comes as a surprise. Until now, the folkie's only link to the film was through Timberlake's co-star, Carey Mulligan, who happens to be Mumford's wife.
"There's a Coen brothers film coming out soon that I was lucky enough to work with … Carey [on]," Timberlake recently told Capital FM. "And coincidentally I did work with Marcus Mumford on the soundtrack, so I became very good friends with them. Marcus and myself, we all kind of worked on the music together and I don't know any other world where we would have the opportunity to collaborate like that, but it was so much fun. So not only will that be a great movie, but the music to it will be fantastic."
Timberlake is actually a more leftfield choice for the Coens' soundtrack than Mumford. Inside Llewyn Davis was reportedly inspired by the story of Dave Van Ronk, a fixture of the 1960s folk scene in New York's Greenwich Village. Mumford's a fan: in November 2011, he included one of Van Ronk's songs on an official band playlist.
Mumford & Sons are currently on a worldwide tour promoting Babel, their hit second album. But the group is already considering the follow-up, hoping to "make [a] departure" from the work that made them famous.
"There's definitely cohesion between [our] two albums," keyboard player Ben Lovett told Rolling Stone. "Now that we've done that … we're willing to explore what else we could do. These two albums are like brothers. Do something that's a cousin."
"The world has been really supportive of those songs, but then there's other sounds we want to make," Mumford said.
Asked what those "other sounds" could be, Mumford joked that the band hope to explore hip-hop.
"We really want to rap," he said. "We've just got so much to say – saying it through a melody doesn't really work for me. We've been talking with Jay-Z about it, you know."
Earlier this month, Mumford & Sons collected the Brit award for best British group and a Grammy for album of the year.
