Kara Talve

Hard to believe that we're already about a quarter of the way through season 6 - feels like we've only just started. To commemorate this occasion, I'm joined by Kara Talve. Kara has been the principal composer of The Simpsons for the last few years, serves as the principal composer at Bleeding Fingers Music (the Hans Zimmer-founded composer collective), and has scored projects like Prehistoric Planet (and the upcoming Harry Potter series). In fact, we spend much of our conversation talking about Prehistoric Planet, for which she received her fifth Emmy nomination just a few hours before we conducted this interview. Prehistoric Planet gave us plenty to cover: the constantly changing styles and genres (in part due to the ever-changing locations and "characters" of the show), building unique instruments, driving the story due to minimal character or narrative, and more. The instrument side of things was particularly interesting to me. A lot of the time it feels like a gimmick that perhaps has a connection with the film but doesn't actually noticeable change the sound of the score. But then you get something like the terror tone, an instrument based off of the fossilized larynx and trachea of Llallawavis scagliai, creating an otherworldly evil sound. To make this and other instruments, they consulted with paleontologists to get measurements, frequencies, and other aspects related to these creatures. Kara even mentions that using bone in percussion gives a resonance you don't normally find, which reminded me of the use of a deer skull as percussion in Agalloch's seminal album The Mantle. Kara's score for the first two seasons of Prehistoric Planet, and much of her other music, is available on all major platforms while the show itself is available on Apple TV. However, for unknown reasons the score for season 3 remains unreleased (and Kara makes a call for its release during the interview). You can find out more about Kara on her website.