Lakeshore Records will release two new volumes of music from the third and final season of the Gaumont Television and NBC television series Hannibal, composed by Brian Reitzell. The Hannibal Season Three - Original TV Soundtracks, Volumes 1 & 2 will be available digitally on December 11, 2015 and on CD on January 8, 2016. The two volumes also contain the original songs, "Love Crime" (from 'The Wrath of The Lamb,' which features Siouxsie Sioux, and "Snake Charmer," which features Marc Almond.
Regarding working with Siouxsie Sioux on the song, which closes the finale of the series, Reitzell said, "It will be quite emotional, for the fans, and I wanted them to have a souvenir. I wanted them to have a song. I wanted them to have a melody, because I've not been able to really do that with this show. But since we're leaving—or at least taking some time away from the show, whatever the future is—I felt like I needed to give them something. Siouxsie was a fan of the show and she absolutely nailed it."
In addition to the Siouxsie Sioux track, Marc Almond contributed a performance. "I had done a track built around the Mason Verger character and the notion that he was a bit inhabited with this lunatic / Brian Jones / Moroccan / LSD vibe. Marc was at the London premier along with Siouxsie and I think Bryan Fuller playfully asked if I was going to do a song with him," said Reitzell. "After the show ended I turned the Mason Verger piece into a song and sent it to Marc. He loved it and went into a studio and recorded a bunch of vocals that Ken Sluiter and I then took to finish the track. It's a fun song, the opposite or maybe the flipside of what I did with Sioux which is fitting for the show with its dreamy yet totally absurd reality."
Like with the soundtracks from the previous two seasons, the Season 3 soundtrack plays chronologically. However, season three has two distinctly different tones—with Volume 1 the European side and Volume 2 covering 'The Red Dragon.'
"The arc of the third season was such that we start out in Paris and Italy but after the seventh episode, (which I think is the craziest episode in the history of network television!) we reinvented the show to do the 'Red Dragon' story," Reitzell described. The score likewise changed.
He continued, "I altered the score so that when we start there's a bit of 60's Morricone vibe in there (fuzz guitar, organ, trumpet). I also added an upright bass to my ensemble so it got more playful at times but had even more teeth at others. Once I got to episode 8, which begins the 'Red Dragon' episodes, I replaced the guitars and organs with massive custom made Harry Partch-esque wooden Bass Tone Bars. They are huge and fill my entire live room, the size of 4 grand pianos! I also infused a 100-piece orchestra so the whole thing get's more and more cinematic as we approach the finale and ultimately Siouxsie's voice with the orchestra."