How Composer Walter Mair Turned 800 Bars of ‘Musical Nonsense’ into ‘Liaison’s Score and Theme Tune
variety.comA.D. Amorosi For Apple TV+’s first French-English, multi-language, adventure series “Liaison,” creator-writer Virginie Brac and Emmy-winning (“24”) director Stephen Hopkins chose evocative composer Walter Mair – known for commercials, video games and compositional elements and arrangements for Netflix’s “Squid Games” – to bring a mix of electronic and live instrumentation to its war-torn, lovelorn storyline.
Creating a tensely menacing and intricate score for an emotional tale starring Vincent Cassel (who also serves as executive producer) and Eva Green gives the six-episode thriller an epic, yet intimate sweep.
Mair’s textural feel for frenetic movement and incendiary intrigue found the composer utilizing writing and orchestrating skills familiar from his battle work on violent video games such as Rockstar’s “Grand Theft Auto” series, Sony’s sci-fi franchise “Killzone,” and “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction.” “It is all about finding the voice,” said the Austrian-born composer regarding the difference between video game shootouts and the up-close-and-personal violence endemic to “Liaison.” “In video games, you look at things such as how close the protagonist is to the antagonist in a fight sequence.
You build musical layers upon layers while questioning who is entering and re-entering the fight… everything is being scored frame-by-frame.” Finding “the voice,” quite literally within “Liaison,” meant having romantic partners, avenging angels and assassins traveling hurriedly from Paris to London to Damascus to Turkey to Brussels.
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