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The piece itself is kind of asking a question.
It doesnt announce itself right away Cassiandoesnt know who he is so the music starts with lurking.
Theres this strange pulse.
Is it a synthesizer?
Even the shape of that piece was a metaphor for our own journey with the show.
It doesnt know what it is right away, and you get a glimpse, and then its gone.
I remember playing Tony that idea in the middle of 2021.
There were so many possible permutations that we couldnt really decide.
Then it was like, Well, maybe we dont have to.
It gave us a way to customize and show all the realms of possibilities the series itself presented.
I dont know yet about continuing that in season two.
I really likeepisode ninestitle sequence, the total synth one.
Its so out there from what I imagined I would do for the show.
It was very important that it actually feel like the local townspeople were playing it.
In the first three episodes, the music is there to provide a sense of atmosphere.
I wanted it to not overtly announce itself but slowly and subconsciously appear.
On Kenari, I wanted to create that sense of a lost world and of childhood.
There was a sense of wood blocks, of percussion, of literally branches and leaves.
I wanted every place to have its own unique fingerprint.
A lot of sonic creation went into Kenari; there is also a string motif mixed with a synthesizer.
You hear that throughout Kenari, this sense of building tension.
Each episode has its own kind of tension concept.
It was helpful thinking about Cassian on Kenari.
Theres a wistfulness, a sense of loss thats a whole other side of him.
You cant go back, you cant go home again.
Thats one of the wonderful ways music tells a story: We can feel a past weve actually created.
The Mechanics of Ferrix
Cassian grew up on Ferrix and lives there when the series begins.
Tony and I actually created that Time Grappler sound using things like pipes in his basement.
Theres We Begin and End of Day.
Ones called Feed Someone You Know.
This is a culture where music has a meaning.
That is a specific rhythm, a signaling language, that we had everyone learn on set.
The score is our world and then theres diegetic musicinthe world.
It was really figuring out the soundsinthe world first.
That was my way in, literally, toAndor.
That cover allows him meetings with allies like Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve OReilly).
Its not just,Im playing a role theres a sense of,Who am I?
What am I doing?AndThis is now my life.
Hes giving his life for the cause, and so it has a sense of loss and yearning.
From our orchestra, theres a rich swelling sound to those strings that Tony was drawn to.
You hear a grandeur, but theres a personal sadness.
Theres a bang out of felt-piano sound I used in regard to Luthen and Kleya.
You also hear it between Cinta and Vel at some of their more poignant moment.
Im very drawn to those sounds that have a kind of imperfection to them.
You feel the physicality of the sound and how it was made.
What if This Track Is an Intergalactic Hit?
I loved working with Tony.
I would suggest something, and it was never No, it was always Lets try it.
The great example is the Niamos piece.
I think theyre all pretty good.
Theres an intensity and grittiness to this world.
Were about to see Cassian kill these people.
How do we make you feel like youre somewhere else?
I remember saying to Tony, What if this track is an intergalactic hit?
We were constantly doing these little Easter eggs.
It wasnt that we needed or wanted people to be like, Oh, I get that!
It was more for ourselves, to make the world feel even more connected.
When we got to Niamos, it was very, very clear that that was where this track belonged.
Were here, party planet!
We call that the Galaxy Mix.
Its actually the intergalactic version.
When we got to Narkina 5, I had to come up with a whole new soundscape.
It was a very overt jot down of alarming.
Right away, you know: This is not a good place.
When you finally see this strange prison in the middle of a sea, I really leaned in heavily.
Thats probably the most synth oriented the show gets at any point.
The escape from the prison with Kinos speech, that piece at the very end is almost entirely orchestra.
When they were escaping, there are some gorgeous scenes you see them running through those sky bridges.
I had some synthesizer in there, and Tony was like, We gotta pull that out.
Were going French horns and full orchestra, triumphant:They did this.
What begins as something awful, they turn into their rallying One Way Out.
The biggest sound of the season is without question the end of episode ten a wall of sound.
Cassian calls home to Ferrix and learns Maarva has died.
A solitary, melancholy moment on the beach nods to his death scene inRogue One.
Theres a meta layer, on the franchise level, of Cassian being on the beach.
Its a cello nonet of Maarvas theme.
Initially, he finds out his mother died and immediately you start hearing this piece.
But Tony and I had the same instinct: It needs to be silence when he finds out.
You hear the wind blowing and it magnifies that sense ofyoure really alone in the world.
Then the first cello note enters.
The first thing we started working on was the funeral in episode 12.
You know theres gonna be this huge sequence with all these people playing on set.
I wanted to create a sense of the tradition of Ferrix, something generation after generation has participated in.
Theres a sense of the history of this world.
We had to design instruments.
There were so many layers to it.
Theres the forming of it.
Theres the first march.
Then theres the piece they play, which is a very horncentric melody.
Its not an obvious answer.
Matt helped with coordinating and conducting at times, and with those pieces on set.
Tonygave me a giftthat was very kind, one of the horns we created.
I named it after Matt Dunkley: the Dunklehorn.
Its sitting in my living room.
You hear it most clearly in the end of episode three, the Past/Present Suite.
Hopefully, those things add up over time so youve created a sense of sonic memories.
It has a potency.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
