Slow Horses: Season 1
(Digital) ATV+ Original Series Soundtrack

Oscar-Nominated, Emmy-Winning Composer/ Songwriter Daniel Pemberton collaborates with Rock Legend Mick Jagger for Main Title Theme of Apple Tv+ New Limited Series: Slow Horses Original Score by Daniel Pemberton

Oscar-Nominated, Emmy-Winning Composer/ Songwriter Daniel Pemberton collaborates with Rock Legend Mick Jagger for Main Title Theme of Apple Tv+ New Limited Series: Slow Horses Original Score by Daniel Pemberton

Oscar-nominated and Emmy winning composer/songwriter Daniel Pemberton scores Slow Horses for Apple TV+. Along with Pemberton, Mick Jagger co-wrote and sings the original main title theme, “Strange Game.”

The keenly anticipated espionage series starring Academy Award winner, Gary Oldman, is available to stream on Apple TV+. Adapted from Mick Herron’s CWA Gold Dagger Award-winning first novel in the 'Slow Horses” series, the six-episode drama premiered globally with the first two episodes, has been followed by a new episode every Friday.
Pemberton scored the series, but for the main title theme, the director and music supervisor envisioned Pemberton collaborating with a major British musical Icon; Rolling Stones’ frontman, Mick Jagger, answered the call.
Earlier this month, a special live performance of “Strange Game” performed by a full orchestra, Daniel Pemberton on guitar, and Mick Jagger’s pre-recorded vocals, received a standing ovation at Deadline’s Sound & Screen concert at Royce Hall.

The series marks the first time Jagger has written music for television. Jagger stated that he knew the books and the vibe well, and explains, “As soon as Daniel sent the track to me, I immediately sent off a few pages of notes.
It came together very quickly, which is always a good sign.” Director James Hawes recalls having dinner with London music supervisor Catherine Grieves, proposing the idea of a song with “just one name in mind. I wanted somebody that felt like they were London and had the same gravitas and swagger as Jackson Lamb. It just had to be Jagger. And I think we both laughed about it,” thinking it unlikely that the veteran rocker would even consider it.

Catherine Grieves elaborates, “Daniel had written this brilliant opening title as an instrumental, which totally lent itself to a song. The ‘Slow Horses’ company assembled a package to submit to Jagger’s music team, including a three-and-a-half-minute trailer and a page of detail about the series by the ‘Slow Horses” writer Will Smith.” “Jagger is a perfectionist”, Pemberton explains about working with Jagger; “He wanted to make it better. I’d rework the song to accommodate his new chords…. and when he sang ‘it’s a strange game’ in this soft mysterious voice, I went, ‘that’s the name of the song!’ I started rearranging the song to make that the focus.”

To create the unique musical landscape for the score, Pemberton incorporated low-fi recording techniques and slightly “wonky sounds.” Parts of the song are heard in the body of the show, and Jagger’s signature harmonica occasionally features in Pemberton’s underscore.

Pemberton has previously collaborated with music legends including Iggy Pop, Danger Mouse and Celeste, which earned her and Pemberton both Oscar nominations for “Hear My Voice” from The Trial of the Chicago 7.
Director James Hawes traces the need for an unusual theme song back to the start of discussions about the score in 2020. “It is a resoundingly British show in a very confident British genre, which had to find a flavor of its own,” he says.

“Slow Horses” is a darkly humorous espionage drama that follows a dysfunctional team of British intelligence agents who serve in a dumping ground department of MI5, known un-affectionately as “Slough House.” Oldman stars as Jackson Lamb, the brilliant but irascible leader of the spies that end up in Slough House due to their career-ending mistakes, as they frequently find themselves blundering around the smoke and mirrors of the espionage world.
The ensemble cast includes Academy Award nominee Kristin Scott Thomas, BAFTA Scotland Award winner Jack Lowden, Olivia Cooke, Saskia Reeves, Dustin Demri-Burns, Rosalind Eleazar, Christopher Chung, Paul Higgins, Freddie Fox, Chris Reilly, Steve Waddington, Paul Hilton, Antonio Aakeel, Peter Judd, and a special guest appearance by Academy Award nominee Jonathan Pryce.

The series is produced for Apple TV+ by See-Saw Films and adapted for television by Will Smith (“Veep”). Graham Yost executive produces alongside Smith. Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Gail Mutrux and Douglas Urbanski also serve as executive producers on the series. James Hawes serves as an executive producer and directs all six episodes.

About Daniel Pemberton

Daniel Pemberton is an Academy Award-nominated composer who has regularly been cited as one of the most exciting and original new voices working in modern film scoring today. Comfortable composing for everything from rock bands to symphonic orchestras, record-scratchers to jazz quintets, Pemberton’s innovative scores have consistently been singled out for critical acclaim. His credits include studio films such as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Birds of Prey, Enola Holmes and Ocean’s Eight as well as smaller independent features such as the Cannes Palme d’Or competitor Mal de Pierres or the powerful Paralympics documentary “Rising Phoenix,” for which Pemberton recently won a Sports Emmy Award for Best Music Direction. In addition to Slow Horses, Pemberton has scored AppleTV+ series The Afterparty.

Pemberton was named Film Composer of the Year in 2021 by both the World Soundtrack Awards and the international film music critics association IFMCA. He has received multiple Golden Globe nominations for projects including: his neo-noir score to Motherless Brooklyn, his mix of opera and electronics for Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs, “Hear My Voice” (performed and co-written by Celeste) from Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, and “Gold” (performed and co- written by Iggy Pop) from the Stephen Gaghan film of the same name. Pemberton also received a 2021 Best Original Song Oscar nomination for “Hear My Voice.” His Score for Being The Ricardos was Oscar shortlisted and BAFTA nominated.
Pemberton has scored projects for leading filmmakers including Ridley Scott (All the Money in the World, The Counselor), Danny Boyle (Yesterday, Steve Jobs), Aaron Sorkin (Being The Ricardos, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Molly’s Game), Darren Aronofsky (One Strange Rock), Edward Norton (Motherless Brooklyn), Louis Leterrier (The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance) and Guy Ritchie (The Man From U.N.C.L.E., King Arthur: Legend of the Sword).

More info at: Official Web Site Apple TV+

Polydor Records presents the soundtrack for the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses. The album contains the music from the first season composed by Academy Award and Emmy Award nominee Daniel Pemberton and the Mick Jagger opening titles song Strange Game

Polydor Records presents the soundtrack for the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses. The album contains the music from the first season composed by Academy Award and Emmy Award nominee Daniel Pemberton and the Mick Jagger opening titles song Strange Game

The soundtrack is available since Friday, April 29, 2022 on digital music services.

Slow Horses is developed by Will Smith and based on Mick Herron’s first novel in the book series with Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jonathan Pryce, Olivia Cooke and Jack Lowden.

Slow Horses follows a team of British intelligence agents who serve in a dumping ground department of MI5 – Slough House. Oldman stars as Jackson Lamb, the brilliant but irascible leader of the spies who end up in Slough House due to their career-ending mistakes. Joining Oldman is a decorated ensemble cast including Academy Award nominee Kristin Scott Thomas (“Darkest Hour”), Academy Award nominee Jonathan Pryce (“The Two Popes”), BAFTA Scotland Award winner Jack Lowden (“Dunkirk”), and Olivia Cooke (“Sound of Metal”).

The series is produced for Apple by See-Saw Films and adapted for television by Will Smith (“Veep”). Graham Yost executive produces alongside Smith. Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Gail Mutrux and Douglas Urbanski also serve as executive producers on the series. James Hawes directs all six episodes and executive produces.

More info at: Official Web Site Apple TV+