Musique Fantastique

November 4, 2022

Lakeshore Records Releases AVENUE 5 – Original Series Soundtrack – Music by Adem Ilhan

Lakeshore Records has released the original series soundtrack to AVENUE 5, featuring music from the first and second seasons by Adem Ilhan (IN THE LOOP).

AVENUE 5 takes us to a not-so-distant future where space tourism is a booming business. While manning a luxury spacecraft owned by Herman Judd (Josh Gad), Captain Ryan Clark (Hugh Laurie) finds himself in over his head when the ship is thrown disastrously off-course – turning what was meant to be an eight-week cruise into an eight-year journey. Picking up five months after failing to reroute the vessel, season two follows the crew – including fiery engineer Billie (Lenora Crichlow), unpredictable head of customer relations Matt (Zach Woods), and faithful right-hand Iris (Suzy Nakamura) – as they struggle to lead, calm, control, and, if need be, hide from increasingly unruly passengers. On Earth, they’re lauded as heroes, and in space, everyone can hear them scream.

With a directive that the score “needs to sound like no other music,” composer Adem Ilhan set out on an unorthodox recording journey with the help of bass clarinetist Robert Stillman and violinist Emma Smith creating a vividly chaotic yet melodic backdrop to the manic futuristic space comedy. Ilhan is an award-winning composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist who has brought his idiosyncratic music and processes to many projects over the years, moving into scoring for series and feature films. His work as a record producer and recording artist feeds directly into his scores, bringing a fresh creativity and a fearless exploratory route to beautiful, strange and thrilling music. Added Ilhan in his extensive liner notes for AVENUE 5: “In this score I knew that I wanted rigidity in order to give pace, but also a constant sense of unease or underlying dread.  The script is very funny, but it is powerful because it examines ineptitude in the face of disaster – I felt it would be my job to make that dread be palpable, but also be able to keep the fast momentum flowing.”

Adem continues to work with Armando Iannucci on HBO’s Avenue5 having scored In the Loop and other projects and was music producer on Danny Boyle/Richard Curtis’ Yesterday, continuing his collaboration with the inimitable Daniel Pemberton (for whom he has contributed to many soundtracks).  He has composed music for several films including The Ones Below, various series including Steve Coogan & Sarah Solemani’s six-part CHIVALRY, HARD CELL for Netflix and the 18-part BBC series CHEATERS.  He has a history of excellent, award-winning documentaries and contributed a key track to the score of Shane Meadow’s DEAD MAN’S SHOES.

The soundtrack for AVENUE 5 is now available at these links.