200 Words On... Torin Borrowdale's Score for Locke and Key Season Two

Locke and Key played a significant role in my life through the years it was serialised.

I started out reading it in 2008, a happy-go-lucky, kid-free thirty-something unpublished author; ended in 2013 as a dad and legit writer with a soon-to-be published debut novel. It’s a visceral, violent and magical sequence of stories that have an effortlessness that suggests a sort of inevitability. The kind of story that makes you go Of course! Why hasn’t that been done before? Also the sort you put on a high shelf so the (now ten-year-old) kid can’t reach ‘em.

Its prominent place in my affections goes some way to explaining my reluctance to watch the Netflix show. I saw S1E1, then put it all on hold in case it was going to screw everything up for me. But I have been able to enjoy the magnificent score. Torin Borrowdale handles sentiment exceptionally well, going for a palette of strings and French horn that recall Thomas Newman’s work for Shawshank or Green Mile. Sprinkled cymbals, plucked harp strings, a plaintive oboe… yeah, it’s good stuff.
 
For a writer who like me, who works to cinematic background music it (mostly? almost mostly?) hits the right notes.