Sounds of Menace: Geo-Immersive Music in Nordic Noirs

This chapter offers an overview on the music in Nordic Noirs. The term Nordic Noir describes a body of crime stories set in Scandinavia in the 1990s. The most celebrated authors of the genre, Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, and Arne Dahl created stories with disillusioned detective plagued by self-doubt solving brutal murders in claustrophobic, grey, and desolate landscapes or cityscapes. The social-critical approach exploring general malaise, concealed racism and misogyny, and rising immigration in Scandinavia was an important impetus in adapting a number of these mysteries for television. In addition, new series were created on original stories, such as The Killing (2007-2012), The Bridge (2011-2018), Trapped (2016-2019), and Bordertown (Finland, 2016-2019). In fact, The Bridge grew so popular that it was remade five times, with The Tunnel (UK/France, 2013-2018) as likely the most significant of these remakes. This chapter focusses on two case studies: the Swedish-Danish coproduction The Bridge (2011-2018) and the Icelandic Trapped (2016-2019). The objective of the chapter is to show that the music in these two procedural police dramas are closely linked to the stunning landscapes in which these mystery dramas take place. The music, as “geo-immersive” music, announces to the audioviewer that past secrets are concealed within the guilty landscapes. With Jacques Lacan’s theory, we can read this music intrinsically linked to the landscape as a marker pointing to the collective unconscious of the community in which heinous crimes are occurring. Features of “geo-immersive music” are drones, ostinatos, riffs, and expanded synthesizer pads. These static musical structures in conjunction with the environment provide a haptic, immersive experience to audioviewers. The music has less a narrative function in the traditional sense than an emotional impact pulling audioviewers into the oppressive landscapes these brutal crimes take place. Such an aesthetic approach fulfills the requirements of Anahid Kassabian’s “mood music.” Furthermore, the clear distinction between music and ambient noises is often obliterated, a constituent that can be analyzed with Danijela Kulezic-Wilson’s research on recent sound design and music. The central objective of this chapter is, therefore, to show how music in Nordic Noirs is used as a means to announce hidden past secrets which are about to return into the present times as violent events. Music thus emphasizes specific local idiosyncrasies of either close-knit communities or large anonymous cityscapes in Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, in which these dark stories are set.