Today marks the release of the soundtrack to Boyhood—a film written, directed, and co-produced by Richard Linklater—on Nonesuch Records; the movie, which is being distributed by IFC Films, opens this Friday, July 11, in the UK, New York, and Los Angeles before going wider across the US beginning next week. Shot over 12 years with the same cast, Boyhood is a groundbreaking story of growing up as seen through the eyes of a child named Mason (a breakthrough performance by Ellar Coltrane), who literally grows up on screen before the viewers’ eyes.

The New York Times film critic A.O. Scott calls Boyhood "one of the most extraordinary movies of 2014, or for that matter the 21st century so far." Film critic David Edelstein, in a review for CBS Sunday Morning, says: "Boyhood makes each moment momentous."

The film’s soundtrack spans the story’s 12 years, with songs ranging from the year 2000 (Coldplay’s “Yellow” and The Hives’ “Hate to Say I Told You So”) to 2013 (Yo La Tengo’s “I’ll Be Around”). The album also includes the classic “Band on the Run,” by Paul McCartney and Wings (from the 2010 re-mastered album of the same name) and the debut of a new song written by Jeff Tweedy and performed by the father/son duo Tweedy—“Summer Noon.” The Boyhood soundtrack album was produced by Richard Linklater and Randall Poster.

To pick up a copy of the Boyhood soundtrack, head to iTunes or the Nonesuch Store, where CD orders include a free download of the complete album at checkout; MP3 and FLAC lossless files are also available to purchase there.

Starring Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as Mason’s parents and newcomer Lorelei Linklater as his sister Samantha, Boyhood charts the rocky terrain of childhood like no other film has before. Snapshots of adolescence from road trips and family dinners to birthdays and graduations and all the moments in between become transcendent. Boyhood is both a nostalgic time capsule of the recent past and an ode to growing up and parenting. Cathleen Sutherland produced the film with Linklater.

Before Slacker, an experimental narrative revolving around 24 hours in the lives of 100 characters, garnered acclaim in 1991, Richard Linklater had made many shorts and completed a Super 8 feature, It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988).

Linklater’s additional credits include the 1970s cult hit Dazed and Confused (1993); Before Sunrise (1995), for which Linklater won the Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear Award for Best Director; Suburbia (1997); The Newton Boys (1998), a western/gangster film set in the 1920s; the animated feature Waking Life (2001); the real-time drama Tape (2001); the hit comedy School of Rock (2003); $5.15 an Hour (2003, HBO), Before Sunset (2004) which earned him an Academy Award nomination; Bad News Bears (2005); A Scanner Darkly (2006); Fast Food Nation (2006); Inning by Inning: A Portrait of a Coach (2008); Me and Orson Welles (2009); Bernie (2012); Up to Speed (2012, Hulu); Before Midnight (2013); and Boyhood (2014).

Linklater also serves as the Artistic Director for the Austin Film Society, which he founded in 1985 to showcase films from around the world that were not typically shown in Austin. Now one of the nation’s top film organizations, The Austin Film Society shows more than 200 films a year, has educational programs, and has given out more than $1,500,000 in grants to Texas filmmakers since 1996.