Recently I spoke with Mark Henry Phillips, sound designer and additional composer for the podcast Serial. Every week he would mix an entire episode and develop additional music as necessary. Phillips didn't write the show's iconic theme, though: that music was written by Nick Thorburn, whose work was integral to defining the hit podcast's identity.
I recently spoke with Thorburn about how he laid the foundation for the podcast's sonic identity.
What's your background in music?
I've had 11 and a half years of professional music making via the Unicorns, Human Highway, Mister Heavenly, and Islands. Islands have released five albums since 2005 and including solo releases, I've released another six. I've done little odd appearances here and there, mostly singing the hook on rap records, but primarily I'm fronting bands and making records, which involves producing the records, writing the music and the lyrics.
How did you come to make a profession of it?
I was finishing film school in Montreal and the Unicorns made a record, for $200, in our rehearsal space. I realized how much cheaper and more immediate the results would be to make a go of the music so I put the film stuff on a heavy pause.
How and why did you get asked to work on Serial?
My friend Kurt Braunohler is a comedian in L.A. He was starting his podcast the K Ohle and asked me to do the theme song. Gabe Delahaye, another comedian and friend in L.A., was making a podcast and he also asked me to do the music. The podcast never went, but his producer, Jane Marie, liked the songs that I submitted and suggested me when her This American Life cohorts were building up Serial. I was offered the job, and I created some music on the fly and the Serial producers deemed it worthy.
What were your initial reactions to the podcast? You heard a rough mix of the first episode without music, correct?
I received one episode, in rough form, and built the music around that. They said they wanted reoccurring themes to continue throughout the season, so I handed them about 15 pieces of music and let them take it from there.
How did those initial reactions inform the development of your music?
I listened through once and pretty quickly got the gist of it. I didn't overthink it; I just let my good taste be my guide.
When you started writing, what was your process like? Was it pretty quick and easy, or did it take a while?
Everything took a couple days. I think I knocked it out in a weekend.
How did you develop what became the theme?
I sat down with a keyboard, in this case a very peculiar Swedish keyboard called the OP-1, and I behaved like a divining rod, grasping at ideas and inspiration but without too much force. The chord progression came to me very quickly and I took it to my work station and recorded it, then added the other instruments to flesh it out into a full "orchestra." I dropped a drum beat in and added acoustic guitar, bass, piano, and some synth overdubs. It happened very naturally — I think the whole process probably took an hour, and I knew right away it had a thematic place in the show.
Was your involvement complete after the initial batch of recordings, or did you continue to stay in the mix? If not, would you have wanted to?
I would have been more than happy to do more music and continue to be a part of the process as the season progressed — but the process with Serial — as, I imagine, with most podcasts like this — was such that they didn't have as much time as they probably wanted.
They had someone mixing the show who also composed music [Mark Henry Phillips], and as the season wore on it probably made sense for him to drop his own music into the latter episodes — as opposed to trying to make my stuff fit. In the latter episodes my theme and lots of key pieces of music endured at key moments, and seemed to strike a chord with people. I'm very thankful for that.
Garrett Tiedemann is a writer, filmmaker and composer who owns the multimedia lab CyNar Pictures and its record label American Residue Records.
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