Drum & Lace and Ian Hultquist: Scoring Netflix’s Night Teeth

The film industry is known for being pretty brutal, so why not team up with your spouse to go against some of its notorious bloodsuckers? Drum & Lace (the artist name of Sofia Hultquist) and her husband Ian Hultquist, while brilliant composers in their own right on solo projects, also often work together to sink their teeth into film projects. In fact, directors often specifically ask for the pair of them. Headliner speaks with the Hultquists about their steady come-up in the industry and their very exciting work on the vampire flick Netflix dropped for Halloween, Night Teeth.

It’s mildly amusing that, considering we’re here to discuss a vampire movie, both Hultquists are telling me they are relieved the weather in Los Angeles is overcast and not as sunny as usual. “We’re not heat people,” Ian says. “I sometimes feel like my whole head and sinus situation just gets completely devastated every time it’s 90 degrees!”

Sofia is originally Italian, but moved to the States to study at the world-famous Berklee College of Music, where Ian also attended (he is American). When Headliner asks them about their time there, they give an almost dystopian impression reminiscent of Squid Game.

“​​Berklee has this wonderful but also cruel way of judging people's musical skills on a scale of one to eight for some reason,” they say. “You take all these tests, and they give you a number. All the people that get sevens or eights are infamous on campus because they're these incredible jazz heads and prodigies that are already on tour with the biggest acts in the world." 

And the pair both explain that, despite scoring at the other end of the scale in some of the tests, they came through this experience unscathed, while also developing their almost exclusively electronic approach to scoring films. 

Despite the fact that, Ian explains, “a lot of Berklee’s teaching is very old-school, pen and paper, and skills such as conducting.

“It's funny because all I want as a film scoring goal is to record an orchestra at AIR Studios,” Ian says, speaking of the famous London studios founded by Sir George Martin. “But when we were starting off, it was a case of what was available to us. We were using Ableton Live as our software for a while, which is very electronic-based. 

"We always had synths around because of the bands we were in. And if this meant the entire score is based on synths with a few strings layered in, then that's what it ended up being.”

It’s safe to say landing this big Netflix project didn’t come out of nowhere after the pair graduated from Berklee — they have been steadily building up quite the CV, for example together scoring all three seasons of Apple TV’s Dickinson, I Know What You Did Last Summer for Amazon Prime, and At The Heart Of Gold for HBO.

If you’re wondering where to start with their film discography, look no further than Night Teeth: one of those rare film scores which is an excellent listen without the film accompanying it. 

Sofia and Ian’s signature synth sounds pulse with menace while also lending an enormous slickness to the film’s Los Angeles setting and vampiric characters, starring such names as Alfie Allen of Game Of Thrones fame, Megan Fox, and a brilliant lead performance from Jorge Lendeborg Jr.

“It's a really fun movie that takes place over the course of a night,” Sofia says. “And it's also a very fresh spin on the vampire genre. 

"These vampires are the social elites of L.A, and then you throw into the mix this happy-go-lucky student who is moonlighting as a chauffeur and has to drive these two strong-willed women around for the night. If you’re looking for some deep and existential plotline then this probably isn’t it for you, it’s just a really good time!”

“From the very first conversation I had with Adam Randolph, the director, he wanted the score to feel like a long mixtape where the score could dive in and out of source tracks,” Ian explains. “It would have some bigger cinematic moments, but always be moving and evolving and have a groove to it – to feel like a producer is putting it together.”

“Adam’s musical inclinations were definitely in line with what we like to do,” Sofia says. “He would mention old school hip-hop, jungle and drum and bass from the UK, so we knew where his ears were at. But we knew that he wanted an updated version of it, which is what we were also really excited to do." 

In terms of how they achieved such a brilliant sound for Night Teeth, Sofia kicks off the studio conversation straight in with Valhalla Room.

“That is a definite staple plugin! And from Soundtoys, we used a lot of Tremolator on this project, and we always use Decapitator too.”

“A great thing we did with that was tuning some Spitfire strings down an octave through a Tremolator patch Sofia made – you can hear that in the track Victor,” Ian says. “We both use UAD Apollos as our interfaces,” he adds.

“And we use a tonne of Spitfire Audio,” Sofia says. “Whether it’s a mockup or for the final product, there's always at least chamber strings or a piano from Spitfire in there. I love the Woodwind Evolutions.”

“And I absolutely love the Ólafur Arnalds libraries,” Ian adds. “Plus, they’ve been super supportive – we’ve done masterclasses for them and have been part of some of their events.”

If you’re needing a fun, Friday night film to stick on Netflix, Night Teeth is just that. But make sure your viewing device has a great pair of headphones or speakers to do its stunning score full justice.