The Northman (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack to the 2022 film of the same name directed by Robert Eggers and stars Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk and Willem Dafoe. The album was released on April 15, 2022 by Back Lot Music. Featuring music composed by Tri Angle artists Robin Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough Vessel, in their first film scoring assignment, the duo had extensively researched on Vikings history to capture the essence of Nordic folk music, since both the musicians have background in electronic music.
Both Carolan and Gainsborough had depended heavily on utilizing traditional instruments representing the Nordic music culture. These include: tagelharpa, langspil, kravik lyre, and säckpipa. However, they experimented their sounds with the limited instruments in order to create particular sounds they need for. The score is also aided by orchestral ensemble, consisting strings and horns, where about 30 to 40 players are composing the score.
The music received critical acclaim, praising both Carolan and Gainsborough's attempts on the approach and experimentation of Nordic music. In addition to the digital and physical album release, Sacred Bones Records unveiled the soundtrack in CD, vinyl and cassette on July 1, 2022.
Development
Robert Eggers had brought Robin Carolan of Tri Angle record label, and Sebastian Gainsborough to produce music for The Northman. Before scoring for the film, Eggers sent both Carolan and Gainsborough, a playlist of periodic music which led them took 18 months for listening the album. According to them, the playlist had a collection of two-instrument drone music, compositions from György Ligeti and Krzysztof Penderecki and Tuvan music collections. They consulted ethnographer Poul Høxbro, to discuss about Viking music. Eggers wanted the score to feel "harsh and uncomfortable", and for "everything to feel like it was caked in mud and dry blood, it was crucial for the score to mirror that". The score consisted of using multiple instruments such as tagelharpa, langspil, kravik lyre, and säckpipa.
Carolan experimented with horns, which had a "lot of period pieces to have that sustained horn note being the war cry". But during research, they came to the conclusion that "the opening cue should be loads of horns going off all over the place. They’re all doing something slightly out of whack with the other. And it’s to do with the theory that they wouldn’t have played just one long note, because that wouldn’t reach your enemies very effectively. So they have this cacophony of sounds, and your enemies wouldn’t be able to miss that." For the orchestral portions, he did not want to use modern strings, but as the nature of the film keeps changing, he had to write larger string-ensemble music for part of the score. The maximum string players accompanied for the film were nearly 3040, and for some sequences, they wanted the string ensemble to mimic a bullroarer. He also incorporated Tuvan throat singing.
Violinist Rakhi Singh, played the langspil for the score, producing "amazing sounds" by experimenting. Though Vikings did not use drums, since the film is made for a modern audience, he had the "idea of having that big village invasion scene without drums, which would have been surreal", but ended up using percussion instrument as the idea did not work out. According to Carolan, "the invasion scene was tricky to score because Robert [Eggers] directed it in a way where it’s almost like one long continuous shot. It’s chaos, but you have to somehow control it. With that scene, because you are basically just following Amleth the entire time, we wanted the music to feel like it’s in his chest, so it’s super repetitive. Seb and I talked about how when you go to a club like Berghain at a certain time in the night, it’s just like, “duh duh duh duh duh duh duh.” There isn’t a lot going on, but it takes you over and you’re almost in a trance where you feel like everything’s propulsive. So with that cue, we were thinking a lot about club music and how sometimes less is more and you don’t need a lot to get the heart going."