Inside North Korea’s Dynasty

Inside North Korea’s Dynasty is a landmark four-part series for National Geographic, exploring three generations and over 70 years of Kim leadership – their motivations, personalities, and family dynamics.

Despite its sometimes harrowing content, I have to admit that this fascinating and stylish documentary series was a pleasure to write music for. It was my first time working with the excellent 72 Films and they were looking for a score that would really up the ante in the dramatic stakes so there was room for me to develop a lot of strong themes. I listened to quite a bit of North Korean music while working on the project, much of which was fantastically strident and (of course) hugely patriotic, so I incorporated quite a lot of brass and male choir into the score.

It was also the first time I extensively made use of my growing modular synth setup on a score. I began many of the tracks with experiments on the modular synth, often sending the sounds of North Korean crowds and iconic speeches by the Kims into the system and creating musical beds and textures derived from this source material. The series won an Emmy for ‘Outstanding Graphic Design & Art Direction’ in 2019, thanks to the fantastic graphic sequences designed by Peepshow. On their website you can see quite a few montages and clips from the series with music by yours truly.

The story begins in 1945 with Kim Il-Sung, a former guerrilla fighter cherrypicked to take control of a fledgling country desperate for leadership; and follows the Kim dynasty through the rule of Kim Jong-Il, and up to the monumental summit between Kim Jong-Un and President Trump in June 2018.

UPDATE: In 2020 I was asked to write music to two more episodes to this series which will go out on National Geographic at some point in 2021.