"The Demonologist is called in when the headline of a cabaret night starts to act very oddly indeed."
This is season 2’s finale episode and features a good mix of comedic and horror cues throughout. There’s a burlesque inspired song featured at the beginning of the episode during the cabaret act, which painted the way for much of the tones and stylistic choices for the score. For the “Alone in the Dark” track, there is a familiar choice of using a pulsating bass line performed by classic synthesisers from the 80’s, followed by pads featured from the same era. This is pretty much the same tonal approach for all intros of Demonologist for Hire and the goal was to generate an identity for the intros of the show, however all intros have a different approach to the composition overall and this episode had a particular focus on chromatic lines and effects played by the electric guitar (sounds like a synth however). As there is a burlesque quality to the episode, there is a double walking bass with a jazz kit accompanying the puppets main motif to bring that element of swing. Much of the episode has specific comedy cues which the music must follow, I used much of the orchestra and orchestral textures to narrate the movement and state of the characters. Uniquely, there is a memory sequence performed by the character Joe after the title card. This became one of the most important and challenging cues within the episode, as the music had to have a dream like quality and not be focused too much in the overall mix. I recall using summing buses and directing all instruments to a virtual vinyl plugin (50’s era) and a series of very wet reverb chains to achieve the space and depth the sequence needed to sound like a distant memory. Was proud of the results of this, and the carnival score adds to the cabaret nature of the episode. There is quite a lot going on with the score, using much of the electronic styles I have used before, but also dwelling into contemporary and alternative styles. I personally think this is one of my favorite episodes of Demonologist for Hire and was pleased that the music had a similar unique quality. The score and audio are attached below, feel free to check it out and hope you enjoy!
https://soundcloud.com/richardhuntercomposer/sets/demonologist-for-hire-s02e04-stage-fright