Max Richter has shared “To the Stars,” the first single from his soundtrack to Brad Pitt’s new movie, “Ad Astra.”

A sci-fi thriller set in the future, “Ad Astra” stars Brad Pitt as an elite astronaut who travels to the outer edges of the solar system to find his missing father and unravel a mystery that threatens the survival of our planet.

Richter’s ambitious score, informed by detailed conversations with Pitt and the film’s director, James Gray, brings together strings, electronics, and vocals to create an “epic soundscape that underpins the emotional power and scale of the movie,” Deutsche Grammophon, the label, explains. He began writing the music almost two years ago, in the initial phase of the film’s production.

“I first saw a rough-cut of the film in early 2018 and was immediately intrigued,” Richter recalls. “I knew I wanted to be part of the world James was inventing in ‘Ad Astra.’ After James, Brad, and I had discussed some initial thoughts, I began by making sketches away from the picture, exploring the themes and psychology of this material in musical terms. These ideas evolved through a collective process of experimentation. James has excellent musical taste, and a refined sense of how sonic and visual objects can inform one another. He’s also fascinated by the expressive possibilities of experimental music production, so was an ideal fellow traveller on this musical voyage of discovery.”

The composer was inspired by the NASA Voyager probes that left Earth in the ’70s, destined for the outer planets, a journey similar to that of Pitt’s character in the film. He incorporated sounds transmitted from Voyager 1 and 2 into the fabric of his music.

Richter actually created two iterations of his score. The first material, derived from the Voyager data, was written in early 2018 and recorded in January 2019 at Air Studios in London, while the second recording took place in the summer of 2019. The key components of Richter’s score are created through the use of strings and electronics, with added warmth from a female chorus.

“Ad Astra” is out now, with the soundtrack coming soon, and “To the Stars” streaming below.

For more information on Max Richter, and the processes behind his work, read our full-length interview here.