“The Thing About Pam,” “The Witcher,” and “The Romanoffs.” Those shows could not be more different. Still, what are you always looking for in scoring a project, no matter the genre?

Belousova: Absolutely. I think we’re always looking for the type of project that would require that unique particular sound and unique particular world that would need to be created. Whether it’s something like “The Witcher,” which is this big, epic fantasy adventure soundscape, or something like “The Romanoffs,” which required a very sophisticated delegate gastro palette, or something like “Pam,” which is hard to describe because it’s so unique and so particular. We’re looking for that unique factor.

“The Thing About Pam,” like you said, is harder to describe, but how do you try to navigate a tone as varied as that show’s?

Ostinell: Well, I think this story is so absurd.

Belousova: It’s basically a case of escalating absurdities, which presents a wide creative field for us to explore. On one hand, we cannot forget that this is a true story of real people, of real tragedies. On the other hand, these escalating absurdities provide a weird comedic element in a way because of how wild and crazy and bizarre these events are, which musically presented a fantastic opportunity to explore so many different things, from horror to comedy.

Ostinell: I think the best way to approach it is creating a through line that carries through both comedic and dramatic moments.

Belousova: Musically, everything revolves around Pam as well. Therefore we have this scene that, as Giona mentioned, is basically an arc that carries us through the whole season and develops in different modifications, variations, shapes, forms.

Such as using slurping for music?

Ostinell: Early on we were discussing with Jenny Klein, the showrunner, and she mentioned that Pam always carries with her this big gulp cup and she keeps slurping through the cup.

Belousova: So we’re like, “Wait a second. If that’s basically like a part of her everyday life, why not make that a part of her soundtrack as well?” And that’s how the idea was born. And Giona is a master slurper.

Ostinell: Yeah. “Why don’t we put slurping as a rhythmic element?” We tried and it was really cool. Then we sent it over, they’re like, “Do we hear slurping?” And we’re like, “Yes.” They loved it.

Belousova: And that’s how slurping became a part of the score. Sometimes it’s introduced as a rhythmical element, like a very fast sharp type of slurping. Other times it’s that type of prolonged slurping.

Ostinell: I know there are so many different slurping techniques that we are just scratching the surface.

Sonya: And the best part is that it’s so incorporated within this score. Sometimes you recognize and hear it, other times it’s really a part of the score. It’s part of the rhythmical element of the score that you don’t even recognize that it is actually slurping, but slurping is all over the score.

I always enjoy hearing from composers just about how they can hear music in so many different sounds or objects. What other strange places have you gone to create an instrument for a score?

Belousova: Well, in this particular one, from the very early stages, one of the things that we discussed with the whole creative team was, “How do we take very simple instruments and twist them into something that they’re not?” And that’s how the main concept was born about this score. Some of the things that we did, for example, we took an English horn or sometimes an oboe. We transposed that sound a couple of octaves lower. That beautiful, gorgeous English horn sound suddenly becomes this very low menacing, foreboding, sonority.

Ostinell: And the cool thing about this is you think you know the sound like, “Oh, it might be a bassoon or a tuba or trombone.” But it is not. You cannot really point your finger at what it is. It makes you a bit unsettled. But at the same time like, I think I know what it is, but I don’t know what it is. It leaves you on your toes.

Belousova: We scratched the strings with so many different objects. Well, to start with, we scratch the strings with coins, because Pam’s all about the money. Scratching the strings was cool with coins — that felt like the perfect object. Or we threw batteries on the strings.

We plugged them with anything and everything, you name it. Another element that we’re using quite a lot is actually a piano pedal, because we needed the driving percussive groove. We were looking for a special percussive element. The piano pedal, it’s a percussive sound, but it’s not really a singular percussive sound, but it has this resonance around it, which makes the overall sound much heavier and with much more gravitas.

Ostinell: We got this simple mouth harmonica and we are like, “How can we transform this into the most dark and menacing type of sound?” And we started playing around and we were able to transform into a very menacing, low type of texture that was very unsettling.

Belousova: Or another instrument. We actually commissioned an instrument maker to create any instrument specifically for the series, because we’re looking for that special element for the cherry on top of the cake. One of the instruments that came up early on in the conversations was a waterphone, but we didn’t really want to use a waterphone because it didn’t feel unique enough for this show. So we commissioned an instrument maker to create an instrument that would be a combination of a waterphone, with a twist. He came up with this instrument, which is basically a combination of a waterphone and a daxophone.

Ostinell: Pam also had this piggy, saving for Paris. So we were like, “Hey, why don’t we use this piggy to create music?

[The duo display two piggy banks over Zoom.]

Belousova: So welcome Piggy and Peggy, which are basically blue peaks that create this super awesome sound. Now imagine when you create a groove out of these sounds, when you place delays and other effects, and then suddenly Piggy and Peggy become this very uncomfortable scratching. That’s the part of the overall growth, when in fact it’s Piggy and Peggy.