How Nicholas Britell's "Andor" Score Finds the Sound of Rebellion

It's kind of weird that there hasn't been more rock music in "Star Wars" so far. It's the story of rebellion in a galaxy that, though long and far away, probably has analog synthesizers and drum kits to go along with its giant starships and faster-than-light space travel. . For so many "Star Wars" episodes in film and TV, however, the show's storytelling mode and accompanying music have sparked orchestral adventures and epics. Just like The Force, John Williams will always be with us.

But the narrative ambitions of the final "Star Wars" story, "Andor", are more of a B-side. The prequel series of Diego Luna's "Rogue One" character is still a space adventure story of a unlikely hero called upon to oppose the Evil Empire - but the show is, excitingly, far messier in execution, and its hero far less star-studded. . Cassian Andor is a petty spiral thief thrown into revolt only because of the petty murder he committed. Nicholas Britell's score reflects this war within the soul of the series' protagonist and the sharpest (one might even say) corner of the galaxy in which he finds himself. Britell's score feels like both a breath of fresh air for the "Star Wars" canon, balancing as it does the bite of the show's clandestine schemes with a rage at Empire's oppression that most "Star Wars" stories take for granted.

The sound of "Andor" wasn't something Britell just sat down and wrote - at least not right away. "There's actually a lot of on-camera musical stuff that happens on the show," he told IndieWire. “And so [showrunner Tony Gilroy and I] started working on these things because some of them needed to be shot. Many of the musical moments in the series had rather complex set elements and directions that had to happen.

"The signaling happening on Ferrix was a warning communication signaling system that Tony and I created. So it's not random. There's actually a beat that signifies the start of a warning and then there's a beat that signifies the warning itself. And then it was actually quite complicated because we have to figure out this on-camera stuff – could that co-exist with the score? The score should- Would it be in tempo with the cue? Or would it just not work? That was the kind of stuff we were trying to figure out from the start."

"Andor"

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