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MERRY MONSTERS: HANNIBAL SEASON THREE Volumes 1 and 2 - Brian Reitzell


Lakeshore Records will release two new volumes of music from the third and final season of the Gaumont Television and NBC television series HANNIBAL, composed by Brian Reitzell (LOST IN TRANSLATION, BOSS). The HANNIBAL SEASON THREE Volumes 1 & 2 Original TV Soundtracks will be available digitally on December 11 and on CD in early 2016.  The two volumes also contain the original songs, “Love Crime” (from ‘The Wrath of The Lamb’, which features Siouxsie Sioux, and “Snake Charmer,” which features Marc Almond.

Regarding working with Siouxsie Sioux on the song, which closes the finale of the series, Reitzell said, “It will be quite emotional, for the fans, and I wanted them to have a souvenir. I wanted them to have a song. I wanted them to have a melody, because I’ve not been able to really do that with this show. But since we’re leaving — or at least taking some time away from the show, whatever the future is — I felt like I needed to give them something. Siouxsie was a fan of the show and she absolutely nailed it.”


In addition to the Siouxsie Sioux track, Marc Almond contributed a performance. “I had done a track built around the Mason Verger character and the notion that he was a bit inhabited with this lunatic / Brian Jones / Moroccan / LSD vibe. Marc was at the London premier along with Siouxsie and I think Bryan Fuller playfully asked if I was going to do a song with him,” said Reitzell.  “After the show ended I turned the Mason Verger piece into a song and sent it to Marc. He loved it and went into a studio and recorded a bunch of vocals that Ken Sluiter and I then took to finish the track….It’s a fun song, the opposite or maybe the flipside of what I did with Sioux which is fitting for the show with its dreamy yet totally absurd reality.”

The dark and haunting series HANNIBAL returned for a third season, revealing the fates of characters hanging in the balance, and the continuing psychological cat-and-mouse games they face.

After the shocking events of the Season 2 finale, Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) is on the run in Europe - accompanied by his psychiatrist Bedelia Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson) - sporting a new identity, but servicing the same insatiable appetite. As the lives of Will (Hugh Dancy), Jack (Laurence Fishburne) and Alana (Caroline Dhavernas) converge toward Hannibal again, each with their own motivations to catch him once and for all, their deadly dance turns in startling and unexpected ways.

In the second half of the season, Jack implores Will to help him catch a new threat, a serial killer preying on families, known in the press as the Tooth Fairy, but self-proclaimed as The Great Red Dragon. The hunt may force Will to turn to an unwelcome source of insight - his old adversary, Hannibal.


Like with the soundtracks from the previous two seasons, the Season 3 soundtrack plays chronologically –However, season three has two distinctly different tones - with Volume 1 the European side and Volume 2 covering ‘The Red Dragon’.

“The arc of the third season was such that we start out in Paris and Italy but after the seventh episode, (which I think is the craziest episode in the history of network television!) we reinvented the show to do the ‘Red Dragon’ story,” Reitzell described.  The score likewise changed.

He continued, “I altered the score so that when we start there’s a bit of 60’s Morricone vibe in there (fuzz guitar, organ, trumpet). I also added an upright bass to my ensemble so it got more playful at times but had even more teeth at others. Once I got to episode 8, which begins the ‘Red Dragon’ episodes, I replaced the guitars and organs with massive custom made Harry Partch-esque wooden Bass Tone Bars. They are huge and fill my entire live room, the size of 4 grand pianos! I also infused a 100-piece orchestra so the whole thing get’s more and more cinematic as we approach the finale and ultimately Siouxsie’s voice with the orchestra.”

Over the last decade and a half, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and music supervisor Brian Reitzell has been on a mission to further elevate the layer that music adds to a film's life. He has created his own unique method of scoring films, drawing equally from his experience as a recording and touring musician with bands such as Redd Kross and Air, and his massive knowledge of recorded music.


Acting as both music supervisor and composer, he often blurs the lines between score, source music, and sound design. His vision is to create a seamless landscape of songs, score, and found music for each soundtrack. Brian’s explorations of new sounds add unique character to visual images. He often has instruments custom built or even invented for individual film scores and wholeheartedly embraces the Brian Eno philosophy of the recording studio as his instrument. Brian has thrived on collaborations with musicians from outside the Hollywood film composer network and has worked with some of today’s most acclaimed musical artists including Air, Richard James (Aphex Twin), Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine), Elliott Smith, Britt Daniel (Spoon), Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Explosions In The Sky, Fever Ray, Robert Plant, Daniel Lopatin and Ensemble Matheus.

Brian's past films include THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, LOST IN TRANSLATION (for which he received a BAFTA award nomination), CQ, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, STRANGER THAN FICTION, THUMBSUCKER, MARIE ANTOINETTE, THE BROTHERS BLOOM, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, BEGINNERS, and RED RIDING HOOD.  His video game credits include his critically acclaimed scores for THQ’s RED FACTION: ARMAGEDDON and last years WATCH DOGS for Ubisoft. Reitzell scored U.K. film artist and Turner Prize winner Elizabeth Price’s WEST HINDER video installation. He has also scored and music supervised Sofia Coppola’s last feature, THE BLING RING as well as Gus Van Sant’s PROMISED LAND. It was Van Sant who got Reitzell into television, bringing him on to score and supervise the show BOSS for cable network Starz.

The final season of the NBC series HANNIBAL will be released on DVD on December 8, 2015.  HANNIBAL SEASON THREE Volumes 1 & 2 Original TV Soundtracks will be available digitally on December 11 and on CD in early 2016. 

Lakeshore Records | http://www.lakeshore-records.com

Okay, show is cancelled... we still have the music, you should really get this music... before Hannibal comes down your chimney!
Jeremy [The Wolf]

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