Compared with the many veteran composers in the industry, Daniel Pemberton is relatively young and seems to have come to prominence fairly recently. Nevertheless Pemberton was working away on various projects away from the limelight of major movies. This included music for various game projects including "The Movies" and "LittleBigPlanet", both of these winning the composer recognition of the form of his nominations for a BAFTA Games award not to mention some repeat opportunities with their game sequels. He also created music for various television dramas, series and documentaries, with nominations in the RTS Craft & Design Awards for his scores to two TV mini-series "Occupation" and "Desparate Romantics". It wasn't until "The Awakening" in 2011 that he got his first film break. This was a modest British horror movie starring Rebecca Hall, Dominic West and Imelda Staunton. However it set Pemberton on course for ever bigger opportunities. The director of "The Awakening" Nick Murphy returned to the composer again for "Blood", but it wasn't long after this that Ridley Scott came calling on Pemberton to score his thriller "The Counsellor".
From then on Pemberton's career has accelerated winning the 'Discovery Of The Year' award at the World Soundtrack Awards in 2014, and two Golden Globe nominations for "Gold" and "Steve Jobs". Directors who called on his talents have included Guy Ritchie for the movie version of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and again for "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword". He worked with Danny Boyle on "Steve Jobs" and was to work again with Ridley Scott on "All the Money in the World". Then more recently he was called upon to score "Ocean's 8", the film featuring the female team continuing the movie series after a multi-year gap, and now the superb movie animation that is "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse". With his movie career taking off he has still found time to continue his work in television with the "USS Callister" episode of the now Netlix series "Black Mirror", various "Top Gear" specials and docu-drama "Brexit: The Uncivil War" starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
In terms of style, Pemberton seems to be particularly chameleon-like. He can certainly write for orchestral forces. However many of his scores are more likely to relegate orchestral sounds to the role of colouration within his music. He seems perfectly comfortable writing for big band or using smaller forces closer in scale to a jazz combo or rock band, sometimes with unusual instrumentation. Electronics can also play a subtle part in some of his scores, and he seems to be willing to experiment. Indeed his Spiderman score may well have been sketched out in his bedroom studio (his score notes indicate he spent many hours DJ-style at the turntable scratching and recording vinyl sounds as building blocks), before taking an orchestra into the music studio to record and replace certain layers. Either way Pemberton's is a unique and very welcome musical voice in the industry. And the news is that there are plans for a Spider-Verse 2!
For Pemberton's Games music "LittleBigPlanet" is full of fun, sometimes weird but always engaging music. Here is a small selection of his television work:
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