Avatar: Seven Havens, the new animated series following Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, has its Book 1 ("Survival") soundtrack out now. Republic Records released the 36-track album digitally on October 30. The composer, of course, is Jeremy Zuckerman, who has been shaping the sound of this world for nearly two decades.
October 30 is also the day Paramount+ dropped the final four episodes (10–13) of season one. The series premiered on October 9 and rolled out in weekly blocks of three, three, three and four episodes, so the score album arrived the very day the 13-episode season was complete. In the comments on Film Music Reporter, one reader noted that this may be the first animated Avatar series to get a score album right as its season wraps. Long-time fans were probably a little surprised at the speed.
"All synth": the co-creator's request
The biggest change this time is the instrumentation itself. According to a BuzzFeed interview published October 9, co-creator Bryan Konietzko wanted an all-synth score. Zuckerman himself calls it "a totally different thing."
Back on Korra, he worked within the limits of what was essentially a "chamber" ensemble. Switching to synths freed him from that and let him build bigger, more immersive sounds, he explains. He studied jazz and computer music at Berklee College of Music and earned a master's at CalArts in modern composition and computer music, and he has done electronic work before, including season 3 of Scream. So this is less an "orchestra guy" suddenly trying synths and more a composer opening up a drawer he always had, for the first time in this franchise.
What makes it fascinating is that he did the exact opposite in the same year. For the feature film Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, released in July, he says the score was "99.5% live-recorded." Full orchestra and choir for the film, all synth for the series: one composer writing two works set in the same world, in the same year, with opposite methods.
A South Indian "vocal percussion" in the main title
It isn't entirely synth, though. There is one human voice in the main title. Zuckerman rewrote his first draft and brought in konnakol, the vocal percussion technique of South Indian Carnatic music, in which rhythms are "sung" as syllables. He hired Carnatic singer Varijashree Venugopal and used her voice "sparingly." She also took part in the Avatar Aang soundtrack. On this album she is credited on track 1, "Avatar: Seven Havens Main Title," and on the closing track 36, "Main Title (Composer Version)."
The voice cast includes Saheli Khan, Aishu Devan and others, and the story is set after Korra's era, in a world shattered by catastrophe. Bringing in a traditional South Indian rhythmic language feels like a very natural move, given that the sound of Avatar has always drawn on music from around the world.
Reading the 36-track list
- Opening: "Hello Friend," "Squad Leader Jae" and "Pavi's Hideaway" lead into "You Can Airbend." For a story about an Earthbender girl learning she is the Avatar, it's intriguing that airbending appears so early.
- Middle: Rough titles like "Demon Storm," "Feral Beast" and "Stampede" sit alongside "Twin Promise" and "Family Is Important," hinting at her bond with a long-lost twin.
- Finale: After "The Faceless Queen," "The Cosmic Plane" and "Welcome Back, Avatar" come "I Am the Avatar," "The Second Chakra" and "This Is the Path." Many will recall Aang's chakra training under Guru Pathik in the original series.
Even the "Avatar: Seven Havens Previously On" cue for the recap segment is included, a very TV-score-album kind of thoroughness.
Three more seasons: how far will the sound change?
Three more seasons have already been ordered. AWN reported the original plan as 26 episodes split into two 13-episode books, with Book 1 "Survival" as the first half. Now that Zuckerman has a new "instrument" in synths, what will he add and what will he strip away in the next book? Even fans raised on the warmth of the original orchestral sound would do well to listen to all 36 tracks in order and get their ears used to this new texture.
