The monsters at the heart of HBO’s Lovecraft Country remain hidden in the shadows, but the two individuals who will score their haunting actions now stand in the light.
HBO has enlisted Emmy award-winning composer Laura Karpman and Grammy winner Raphael Saadiq to score Lovecraft Country, the new horror series from the minds of executive producers Misha Green, Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams. Created during the COVID-19 pandemic, Karpman and Saadiq’s score for Lovecraft Country was recorded by The Unison Orchestra, a remote online orchestra made up of virtuosic musicians from major international orchestras.
The news marks a reunion for Karpman and Saadiq, who previously worked together on Kasi Lemmons’ Black Nativity as well as the 2017 documentary Step. What’s more, it’s a reunion between the duo and Lovecraft Country showrunner Misha Green; Karpman and Saadiq previously scored Green’s series Underground on WGN America.
Lovecraft Country centers on Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors), friend Letitia (Jurnee Smollett) and uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of Atticus’ missing father (Michael Kenneth Williams), leading to a fight for survival against the racist terrors of white America as well as monsters that could be ripped from pages of a Lovecraft paperback. It’s based on the book of the same name written by Matt Ruff.
Lovecraft Country premieres Sunday, Aug. 16.
