The Essex Serpent
(Digital)

Lakeshore Records is set to release The Essex Serpent—Original Series Soundtrack featuring music by Dustin O’Halloran and Herdís Stefánsdóttir digitally June 10, 2022.

Lakeshore Records is set to release The Essex Serpent—Original Series Soundtrack featuring music by Dustin O’Halloran and Herdís Stefánsdóttir digitally June 10, 2022.

The composers utilize electro acoustics and strings creating a score that evokes the darker depths of Victorian England. The series starring Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston, now streaming globally on Apple TV+.

“The Essex Serpent” follows London widow Cora Seaborne (Danes) who moves to Essex to investigate reports of a mythical serpent. She forms a surprising bond of science and skepticism with the local pastor (Hiddleston), but when tragedy strikes, locals accuse her of attracting the creature.
Says O’Halloran and Stefánsdóttir: “From our first conversations with director Clio Bernard, we knew we would be creating something layered and multidimensional.
This was our first collaboration together as composers and it allowed us to explore subjects like fear of the unknown, the Victorian era where science and religion were in constant conflict, and the complexity of superstition.
We got an incredible amount of trust from Clio to experiment! Even though it was a period piece set in late 1800’s, we took a modern approach to the music and how we wrote and recorded it, accentuating the sound of the wood and bow of the strings, and went deep into capturing the sound limits of the cello and electro acoustic manipulation.”

Dustin O’Halloran

Dustin O’Halloran is an American pianist and composer with four acclaimed solo albums under his own name, and is a member of the band A Winged Victory for the Sullen. Winner of a 2015 Emmy Award for his main title theme to Amazon’s comedy drama Transparent, he was also nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a Critics’ Choice Award for his score to Lion, written in collaboration with Volker Bertelmann (aka Hauschka).
His film career began when Sofia Coppola invited him to contribute to Marie Antoinette, and he has since worked on many films and TV shows, including Drake Doremus’ Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Like Crazy, and Marc Turtletaub’s Puzzle.
He also scored George Tillman Jr.’s The Hate U Give and joined forces with Bryan Senti for Nick Murphy’s six-part Sky TV series, Save Me. He and Bertelmann reconvened to collaborate on Netflix’s The Old Guard, and again on the BBC’s 2019 adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. He releases solo music with the renowned classical musical label Deutsche Grammophon.

Herdís Stefánsdóttir

Herdís Stefánsdóttir is an Icelandic composer of music for multimedia, a songwriter, and an electronic musician. She graduated with an M.A. degree in film scoring from New York University. Since graduation she has scored two feature films, including the HBO series We’re Here.
She won the 2022 Icelandic Music Award for her score to the FX series Y: the Last Man and was also nominated for her score in Ry Russo-Young’s MGM/Warner Bros feature film The Sun Is Also a Star.
She interned for the Oscar nominated composer Jóhann Jóhannsson in Berlin while he was working on the film Arrival and she has scored numerous short films that have premiered at top-tier festivals around the world like Berlinale, TIFF, Sundance and Palm Springs International Film Festival. She formed her electro-pop duo East of My Youth in 2015.
The duo has showcased at SXSW, Eurosonic Noorderslag, KEXP, Sonar Reykjavík and Iceland Airwaves.

( - Lakeshore Records - )

More info at: Composer Dustin O’Halloran Official Site

More info at: Composer Herdís Stefánsdóttir Official Site