Composers working in long-form television continue to find engaging and creative ways to convey the essence of character and emotional nuance through hours of storytelling. This season’s standout efforts include shows like “Murderbots,” “Pluribus,” and “Spider Noir.”
On Apple TV’s “Murderbot,” composer Amanda Jones (who previously worked with co-creator Paul Weitz on “Moving On”) confesses that she “flooded” Weitz with demos and musical ideas for six months before filming began. After meeting Chris Weitz, Paul’s brother and co-writer, she officially became involved.
For the title character (Alexander Skarsgård), “a robot with human-like tendencies,” he chose the Roland Juno 60 analog synth in part because “it just makes the craziest noises, and it’s definitely part machine, but it has a mind of its own,” Jones says.
To this, she adds the saenghwan, a Korean reed instrument, that “can reach crazy high notes,” highlighting the concept of organic synthesis combinations. “When he’s realizing some kind of humanity, or showing an essence of being sentient, I’m going to blend those layers,” she explains.
As the series progresses, we hear more of her 50-piece orchestra. She most enjoyed the music for Sanctuary Moon, a sci-fi melodrama about Murderbot. “I’ve always wanted to write something like this,” she says. “It was very Bernard Herrmann-esque, and it was great to write something consciously in that style.” She also set the lyrics to Chris Weitz’s “Sanctuary Moon” theme to music.
One of the most memorable themes this year was the wordless vocals that accompanied the word “Pluribus.” This opened the Apple TV series with Rhea Seehorn as a survivor of an alien mind invasion that targeted everyone on Earth.
It’s the work of Dave Porter, longtime composer for series creator Vince Gilligan (“Breaking Bad,” “Better Call Saul”). The two-part harmony is sung by the same singer, Kenya Hathaway. “She had a childlike quality to her, an innocence that many professional singers don’t have, and a touch of soulfulness that gave her a humanity and relatability that I loved,” Porter says.
Because the story involves a global disaster, the composer required a 50-piece orchestra. But at times, he says, “we’ve cut it down by a third so it doesn’t overwhelm the story we’re telling.” This often involves the lonely existence of Albuquerque writer Carol (Seehorn) and her efforts to thwart the “hive mind” that currently rules the world.
His orchestra consists only of strings and low brass. Porter added, “Others are not demonized. We wanted to be very nuanced about that. We wanted to see all sides of who they are, both positive and negative.”
There is also a nine-voice choir, whose sound is “written to be as complex and often percussive as possible. We also wanted it to sound effortless, especially when used in relation to The Others, because everything is easy for them.” Porter worked on the nine-episode series over 18 months.
Finding the right musical approach for the eight-part peacock thriller All Her Faults was difficult, admits composer Jeff Beale (House of Cards). But “I just couldn’t put this book down,” he says, noting that the writing and acting (particularly stars Sarah Snook, who plays the child’s abductee, and Sophia Lillis, who plays the nanny suspect) were top-notch.
“The music contributed a lot to this production because it’s so emotional. This story is, on one level, a great genre thriller, but on another level, it’s also a strange emotional vehicle of marriage, trust, and betrayal,” Biel told Variety. “I lost my mother shortly before starting this series, so I’ve been thinking a lot about the powerful connection between a child and a mother.”
Beer’s music is primarily for string instruments and piano. “I love when strings can be eerie and full of passion and weird beauty,” he says. “Boy Soprano is also floating in the main title”, this is the theme of the missing child Milo. “In some ways, he’s the most important character, because his absence really moves the story forward.”
Percussion and some electronic elements (“more of an edgy sound,” he says) also add to the story of a Chicago detective (Michael Pena) investigating a crime. Overall, “because there really was a theme of dislocation that happens occasionally between characters rather than a character theme. And there’s no way of knowing how twisted that secret would be and how psychologically betrayal it would be.”
Quebec composer Cristóbal Tapia de Vier (“The White Lotus”) discussed “Lord of the Flies” with director Marc Munden years before filming began on the Netflix miniseries. It was de Vere who suggested making extensive use of the classic works of Benjamin Britten and Olivier Messiaen to hint at the British school background of the boys’ choir who survived a plane crash on a Pacific island.
By the time Munden entered post-production, De Vere was able to provide original music. The first episode contains “abstract noises synthesized to give a hint of the horror to come,” he says. “But in later episodes, the classical stuff gradually disappears and[the music]becomes more and more chaotic.
“It was my job to help the boys discover how completely primitive and violent they were,” De Wier reports. “So I started using the distorted sounds of instruments like the bass clarinet and cello in a way that expressed the changes the boys were going through.”
Amazingly, he used only “seven or eight” musicians and three singers for all of his music. Those voices include “yelling, screaming, even crying. They can be very hellish and emotional, but I think they can also be vulnerable,” he says.
By the third episode, De Vere said, “I’m unapologetically putting a choir on top of an electronic beat and playing more tribal, expressive, dynamic drumming, because we’re at the peak of the intensity of the craziness that’s going on in the jungle.” He spent three months writing the score.
The latest incarnation of Spider-Man is “Spider Noir,” starring Nicolas Cage as the 1930s private investigator formerly known as Spider (complete with all the familiar superpowers). Composer Chris Bowers says, “The challenge for this show was how to honor the noir sound that inspired the writing and cinematography, but at the same time have a contemporary feel.”
He teamed up with longtime colleague Michael Dean Parsons (they collaborated on projects such as “Bridgerton” and “Secret Invasion”). The two shared songwriting duties throughout the eight episodes of Amazon Prime, totaling about four and a half hours of music.
“Chris and I did a thorough study of the music of that era,” says Parsons, drawing from that tradition (particularly films like Double Indemnity) but modernizing it for a “totally fresh approach,” including electronic elements and even an electric guitar.
All the main characters have their own themes, including Ben Reilly (Cage), his journalist friend Robbie Robertson (Lamorne Morris), crime lord Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson), femme fatale Cat Hardy (Li Jun Lee), and the villainous Sandman (Jack Huston).
Bowers and Parsons also have a 50-piece orchestra, but all the jazz piano on the score was played by Bowers, a veteran jazz player. Parsons points out that the percussion was mostly “found sounds”, anomalous noises that were modified and manipulated in the studio (such as Robertson’s character’s camera and newspaper office sounds).
