The score for Kon-Tiki was written by Swedish film composer Johan Söderqvist, who is amongst the most renowned film composers in the Scandinavian region.

Born in 1966 in Täby outside the capital, Söderqvist studied composition and arranging at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. He wrote his debut film score in 1991 (Agnes Cecilia), and the same year wrote his first score for Danish director Susanne Bier (Freud Leaving Home). The soundtrack CD featuring both scores earned a Swedish Grammy for the composer. Bier remains a valuable colleague for Söderqvist, who has written the scores for most of her films, including Brothers (which won him the UCMF Film Music Award at the Cannes Film Festival), along with the Academy Award® nominated After the Wedding and In a Better World, winner of the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Film in 2011.

Söderqvist’s signature scores also include the acclaimed 2008 vampire thriller Let the Right One In by director Tomas Alfredson, for which So?derqvist was nominated for the European Film Award for Best Score and won the Bernard Hermann Award, and Effi Briest, the touching 2009 adaptation of Theodor Fontane’s popular novel.

Whilst writing the score for Kon-Tiki, Söderqvist worked primarily with Tormod Ringnes, one of Norway’s most prominent sound designers, with whom he had collaborated on Together (2009) and King of Devil’s Island (2010), along with Patrik Andre?n (Söderqvist’s assistant). The team worked together to create a soundtrack, a combination of music and sound effects that function as an emotional unit, with the aim of the audience not knowing where one starts and the other ends. Using Skype for daily discussions, they collaborated on cues and sound design concepts before Ringnes would show the sketches to the two directors in Oslo, Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg. Andre?n also provided additional music for the process.

A trademark of Söderqvist’s scores, Kon-Tiki is characterised by a unique atmosphere based on many exotic and unusual instruments recorded especially for this score.

“The first thing that came to my mind” says Söderqvist, “was the sound of the conch horn for Tiki, the God of the Sun in ancient Polynesian mythology. Tiki is omnipresent in the score; even the opening that still plays in Norway has a foreboding episode with the conch horn playing over the frozen lake. I looked high and low for a conch horn soloist, looking up websites in Polynesia and France, then I happened to find the best soloist right here in Stockholm! His name is Tommy Adolfsson. We scheduled a recording session where Tommy brought in his conch horns of all sizes. We mostly made use of the smaller and medium conch horns and found a way to play the instrument with much more air, a more ‘leaking’ sound a bit similar to the Armenian instrument called ‘Duduk’. In the end I think we found a very significant sound with an ‘ancient’ quality to it.”

There were also two major pre-recording sessions of percussion with three players playing on the largest drums they could find. This material was used to create initial sketches to find the tone of the film score.

“You never know if a recording is going to stand all the way to the final mix but in this case, both the conch and the drums helped us to set the tone of the film. When some of the first sketches were made, I sent them confidentially to Tormod and asked him not to show anything to the directors just yet, all I wanted was a little check through his fine ears... Apparently Tormod didn’t follow my orders and showed the sketches to the filmmakers who luckily loved the half-finished work. We had a direction and everyone was happy. The track on the album called ‘Tiki’ is an early recording of the conch horn, and to conclude the project it is also the last thing you hear on the album.”

Tracks:
1. Kon-Tiki (Opening Credits) 2:09
2. Thor and Liv 1:20
3. Fatu Hiva 1:10
4. The Shaman 2:22
5. Kon-tiki is On Course 3:06
6. Into Space 2:18
7. Thor Meets Herman 1:12
8. the flight To Peru 0:56
9. Calling Liv 1:41
10. Thor’s Failure 0:52
11. Following the Sun 1:47
12. The Crab 1:25
13. Tiki 2:16
14. Building the Raft 1:59
15. The Whale Shark 2:35
16. The Journey Begins 0:35
17. The Swede 0:51
18. Luminescent Creatures 0:52
19. lorita The Parrot 1:52
20. The Letter 1:57
21. Herman Is Afraid 0:56
22. Shark Attack 2:11
23. Thor Is Sad 2:06
24. The Seagull 1:00
25. The Raroia Reef 2:14
26. The 13th Wave 0:56
27. Reaching Land 1:59
28. Thor Laughs 1:12
29. Kon-Tiki (End Credits) 5:04
30. Epilogue 5:15