BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE VIA LEVEL AND GAIN
Little Birds is dripping with the sensuality and splendour of decades past. The series, set in 1950s Tangier, places its viewer in a perpetual state of wonder. Visually, it glistens over land and sea with colour and light. Aurally, its largely improvised soundtrack follows the inner journey of its lead character Lucy Savage (Juno Temple) — a young American heiress in a loveless marriage who discovers culture and worldly pleasure.
The Stan series is inspired by the erotic tales of Anaïs Nin, and its immaculate execution for the screen is achieved in part through the vibrant and desirous score of composer Anne Nikitin.
Anne — who has scored films from American Animals to The Imposter and received two Emmy nominations for her work on Untouchable: The Rise and Fall of Harvey Weinstein — talks with us about her stunning score for Little Birds.
Below: Watch the trailer for Stan series Little Birds, but listen to the score on Spotify.
Anne, thanks for the chat about Little Birds. How’d you come to be involved in this series?
I was first recommended by the series music supervisor. I met up with director Stacie Passon for a beer at a hotel bar in London, pre-COVID! We shared similar ideas for the styles of music she was after and hit it off immediately.
What was your relationship to the stories of Anaïs Nin before you started thinking about how her characters would sound?
The TV series is inspired by Anaïs Nin’s collection of short stories, therefore it wasn’t until I actually watched the series that I gained a better understanding of the characters and plot, and could start to think about them in a musical way.
Little Birds is as remarkable on an aesthetic level as it is enjoyable on a character level. How closely did you work with the director or visual teams to build the overall atmosphere and environment of this series? Each scene is glistening with colour, light, and sound.
I worked very closely with Stacie and the producers at Warp. During the spot sessions, we discussed the themes and overall arc of the series, as well as each individual scene in micro-detail. After submitting my music for each episode, we would hop on a Zoom call to discuss the tracks. I quickly learnt what aspects of my music excited them the most, and then developed those ideas, building on them as the series progressed.
Stacie’s key word for me was ‘bonkers!’, which is a wonderful word to be buzzing around in your head. Observing the outstanding visuals, striking colour palettes, sumptuous exoticism, and beautifully complex characters helped me to be more adventurous with my own writing.
Stacie was a dream to work with, allowing me enormous creative freedom within the parameters of the Little Birds world we were shaping.
1950s Tangier, as portrayed in this series, seemed a melting pot of cultures from around the world. Similarly, your music — which seems present in almost every scene — draws from an enormous stylistic palette. We can hear Hollywood-like romanticism, improvised jazz, traditional Middle Eastern influences, and more. When you’ve used so many different styles, how did you know what would work together?
Just as Tangiers was a melting pot for people of different cultures, backgrounds and desires, my score is a similar melting pot.
I drew on all sorts of influences and integrated them, without being prescriptive. I wanted to merge a variety of genres and styles pertinent to the show, and to also blur the lines between western and north African music.
This is what the show does with its characters and visuals, and I wanted the music to mirror this.
With the passages of improvised jazz in particular, these often span scenes that are lengthy and focus on the characters’ spiral into what would, in the era of this show, have been considered ‘deviance’ — whether it’s a character’s psychological rebellion or the culmination of a hedonistic act. How do you feel about this idea of music helping develop the inner experience of a character?
In these instances, especially when dialogue is removed, music can have a very powerful and direct role in exposing and heightening characters’ internal desires — helping to manifest them. These are wonderfully striking moments for the audience watching the series.
Live jazz is performed at the uninhibited nightclub El Sirocco, which is a central location for our ‘deviant’ characters – a place that represents their freedom, where they can be themselves.
I drew on these jazz moments for elements of my score – for example, using jazz drums when I wanted to express sexual freedom.
When it comes down to it, Little Birds is a work of erotica by one of the most famous and beloved erotic novelists of all time — if not the most! When you are tasked with building a soundscape that represents human desire, passion, and worldly pleasure, how do you even begin to approach it? After all, if there’s one thing Nin can teach us, it’s that everyone experiences sensuality differently.
Stacie wanted to avoid going down the route of allocating themes to each character. Instead, we focused on the bigger themes in the series: freedom versus oppression, power versus submission, etc., with human desire threaded throughout these ideas.
I drew on a variety of tools such as the use of vocals — singing, breathing, panting, improvised jazz drums, humourous birdsong, frenzied north African woodwinds, exaggerated tempo accelerations, etc., to convey the various desires that are explored in the series.
In other words, I developed a kit of bold sounds, motifs and techniques to express these ideas.
Read the full interview in our sister publication Level and Gain, which celebrates all things screen music.
Images supplied.
