Happy Halloween! Guillermo del Toro‘s Cabinet of Curiosities recently released on Netflix. This horror anthology features eight episodes written and directed by del Toro or other collaborators, and each was scored by a unique composer as well. I was happy to be asked to score the first episode, “Lot 36,” and had some fun returning to the horror genre with del Toro – one of our earliest projects together was for some additional music on Crimson Peak.
This episode is all about a mystery uncovered in an old abandoned storage unit, so I wanted to find musical elements that could capture the sense of age and disuse of the items within. A rickety old piano that’s fallen badly out of tune features prominently, but there are also other elements, like the static distortion of an old record player, which I used as a percussive element. The main character’s tinnitus was also inspiration for a subtle effect used throughout the episode. Check out the episode and see how it works!
And if you’d like to listen to the music in more detail, the soundtrack has been released on Spotify. Here’s a playlist of the selected tracks from Lot 36:
