How Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans captured the gritty sound of New York City for Netflix show, ‘Black Rabbit’
The composer duo reveal how they turned New York’s chaos into music for Netflix’s Black Rabbit, blending found sounds, orchestral textures, and bold experimentation to create a score that’s as gritty and inventive as the city itself.
Words by Jim Ottewill
“We like to talk about cues as little sculptures, one person starts and builds the form, then passes it to the other,” says Saunder Jurriaans of his film composition process with musical partner Danny Bensi. “It just works so well and efficiently for us, it’s like a creative conversation.”
From New York’s indie scene of the 2000s to soundtracking movies and streaming success stories, Danny and Saunder’s musical adventures have taken them down an unconventional path. Initially bonding over a love of guitar music, they formed the rock band Tarantula (later called Tarantula AD, then Priestbird) before opting to craft soundtracks. Some 100-plus collaborations later, including Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Enemy’, thriller ‘The Gift’ and ‘Last Days in the Desert’, alongside Emmy nominations and awards, their most recent work is for new series, ‘Black Rabbit’. This eight-part crime drama stars Jason Bateman and Jude Law and follows a rising-star restaurateur forced into New York's criminal underworld.
“We’re always asked how we work together,” says Danny about their collaboration. “After this many years, we have an innate understanding of each other.”
Saunder agrees: “We always had a deep respect for each other as creative people. I think we’ve been successful in the film scoring as it’s such a collaborative process. And working like this is something we’re no strangers to.”
The pair initially bonded over a shared love of Iron Maiden, a band they were introduced to by their older siblings when they were younger. At the time, in the mid-to-late nineties, Radiohead was one of the most popular bands amongst their peers - and it was their metal roots that set them apart.
“Back then, being into Maiden was a weird thing,” laughs Danny. “But we both tapped into their epic sound and poetic writing. You can equate Iron Maiden to symphonic writing by Beethoven at certain points in the journeys their songs go on, and the key changes. It’s not super complicated, but it is so adventurous, we both felt that epicness and equated it to film scoring.”
The first film that Danny and Saunder scored together was 2010's ‘Two Gates of Sleep’, an opportunity that landed via one of Saunders’ close friends from his college years.
“Our band was slowing down and he wanted us to score it,” Saunder explains. “We’d always been very cinematic. Danny is a string player, and we were into layering instruments on top of each other with samples and loops. We were adept at coming up with these orchestral textures.”
“But there were no thoughts of this becoming our new career path,” he continues. “We just did the music in our own way in the living room of my apartment in Brooklyn.”
“We like to talk about cues as little sculptures, one person starts and builds the form, then passes it to the other. It just works so well and efficiently for us, it’s like a creative conversation.”
The film was well-received, went to Cannes and opened up more opportunities for them to continue this new creative bond with the film’s production team, Borderline.
“We kept working with them on their movies, went to all the festivals, pounded the pavement, hanging out and making connections,” says Saunder. “It just snowballed, we never advertised or thought we would go in this direction; it was very organic and natural.”
Moving from the band world into film score, the pair realised that although they had never studied it, they had absorbed plenty of insights and knowledge just by being fans of cinema.
“We both learned how much we knew about film, all this information we had absorbed unconsciously as opposed to studying it,” says Danny. “Then we really got into it via the soundtracks, hearing about lighting, what makes for a good take.”
“We didn’t just respond to instructions on what was needed - we worked closely with producers, asking questions about intention, where the story was coming from so we felt like a core part of the movie. As composers, you’re able to steer a film in ways that might surprise a director. It can be a mistake by us or an actual experiment, but we’re always excited to create a little chaos.”
‘Ozark’ is one of their most high-profile success stories, a series featuring Jason Bateman that follows the story of Marty and Wendy Byrde, a married couple who move their family to the Lake of the Ozarks to continue their work laundering money for a Mexican drug cartel. The series came to them after they composed the music for films, ‘The One’ and ‘The Gift’, soundtracks that Jason loved. Danny and Saunder subsequently met him at various premieres and were then invited for lunch with his production team in LA.
“Jason gave us such a beautiful description of what they wanted with the score,” says Saunder. “He knew the tone and that we were the right people for the music; he has this ability to see the bigger picture, which is a rare gift.”
Jason really wanted the music to reflect the landscape, its trashiness compared with the majesty of the mountains, to the rusty hubcaps and rundown cabins. In response to his vision, Danny and Saunder immediately thought of creating a ramshackle percussive drum kit as a starting point.
“We went out, sampled a bunch of stuff, made our own instruments, then had loads of things in the studio we were constantly banging on, that was the foundation for the score,” says Saunder. “There were some electronic sounds in there too, and we discovered so many new methods as part of the process.”
“It was like a dream project, and we ended up doing so much more with him,” adds Danny. “You might hear about how some composers get notes from a director, and it’s all really difficult, but Jason is so articulate and understands our role so well. It really helps inspire the whole team to move forward together.”
“After this many years, we have an innate understanding of each other… we’ve been successful in film scoring as it’s such a collaborative process.”
‘Black Rabbit’ is another project with Jason and grew out of the ‘Ozark’ relationship with many of the same team of editors, music supervisors and more involved.
“When he came to us with this, he asked for dark and distorted sounds,” says Danny. “He couldn’t get away from wanting a dark and dishevelled, New York world and that we were the only composers who knew what he wanted. He was encouraging us to stay within our sound world.”
“We went more into the sound design world with this,” continues Saunder. “Danny and I lived in New York for over 20 years, and we wanted to embody the chaos, pace and relentlessness of it in the score. There are a lot of found sounds, like a subway I had recorded in the city years ago, and we used the screeching of the brakes of a train.”
Garbage cans and other percussive elements were included alongside different pieces of hardware, which they tried to use in what they describe as “a chaotic way”. They also welcomed an ensemble of horns and saxophones as part of a nod to the rich heritage of New York’s jazz history.
“We asked them not to play well, to keep it out of tune and really breathy so there was this kind of disintegrating sense to the music,” says Saunder. “From too much breath came this natural distortion, and it made for this amazing sound, this swarm of metallic sounds. We took it, processed it and distorted it again - with all these weird things, we had a great time making this score.”
With years of musical experience between them, Danny and Saunder are well-placed to offer their insights on what it takes to be a creative musician.
“I always encourage musicians to ask what their instrument is, what do they really love about music, which artists do you like, who do you want to be,” says Danny. “You need to work out what you can do differently and your intent instead of regurgitating other people’s ideas.”
“You have to know an instrument, really get to know it, hit it, try different strings, play it upside down, bring it to life. Then always add distortion.”
Again, the pair are in harmony when it comes to their tips - and Saunder agrees with Danny that going beyond the traditional way of musically behaving is essential.
“I find that a lot of young composers who go through school learning how to compose for film they are very good technically,” he says. “But I think you can throw all that knowledge away - experimentation and not being afraid to make mistakes to mix things up are just super important.”
Photographs by Brian Higbee
