Jungle sounds, hissing snakes, pan flutes, a roaring bass and chilling screams. If there is a soundtrack that captures the atmosphere of the series well (and also keeps ringing in your head for weeks), it is the score of The White Lotus, composed by Canadian Cristobal Tapia de Veer. During ADE he will appear as a keynote speaker on behalf of Buma Music in Motion.
The music not only plays a major role in the background in this hit series. The soundtrack of The White Lotus has one of the leading roles. The music creates the alienating and oppressive atmosphere, increases the tension and is supplemented where necessary by animal sounds.
The soundtrack contributes relentlessly to the message of this dark and wry series. “The soundtrack should give the viewer the feeling that a human sacrifice could be made at any moment,” Tapia de Veer said in an interview with Vulture. “The animal noises and excited cries make us view these strange humans as a group of chimpanzees. It is a form of voyeurism: we watch these privileged people doing their incomprehensible things.”
Cristobal Tapia de Veer
composer, CACristobal studied classical music in Montreal and specialized in percussion techniques. One of his first soundtracks was the score for the BBC series The Crimson Petal and the White: a mix of choral singing, drums and bubbling electronic background noise. This sound became his trademark. He created a database of his own sounds: from whistling to sighs and from rattles to squeaking and hissing animals. The sound of the jungle is reflected in all his soundtracks of recent years.
Jon Weigell (moderator)
Music Journalist, Video Producer, Rolling Stone, USJon Weigell is a music journalist and video producer based in Brooklyn, NY. He has worked for Rolling Stone and Amazon Music, among others, and interviewed countless artists in the rock, metal, electronic and soundtrack scene. What he enjoys most about working in the music industry is meeting all those talented international artists and learning everything about their craft.