Hans Zimmer and composers release ‘Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age’ soundtrack

The soundtrack for the third season of the Apple TV+ nature documentary series, ‘Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age’, has been released. The score is a collaboration between Hans Zimmer, Kara Talve, and Anže Rozman of the composer collective Bleeding Fingers Music.

To reflect the Pleistocene era, the composers utilized a mix of traditional orchestral elements and custom-built instruments. To evoke the scale of mammoths, the team employed a semicircular wall of cellos and double basses along with an octobass, a massive instrument capable of generating subsonic frequencies. For the ‘terror bird’, the team developed a wind instrument nicknamed the ‘Terror Tone’, modeled after the bird’s larynx.

The production also incorporated a replica of the Divje Babe flute, a Paleolithic instrument believed to be carved from a cave bear femur. The score is performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.