BIO

Sam Slater is a Berlin-based, two-time Grammy-winning composer, producer, and sound artist working across film, television, games, records, and installation. His work sits between composition, sound design, performance, and sonic engineering, often building scores from physical processes: feedback, pressure, distortion, altered instruments, damaged electronics, and unstable acoustic systems.

Mentored by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson and a longtime collaborator of Hildur Guðnadóttir, Slater has been closely involved in some of the most distinctive screen scores of the last decade. He was score producer and musical sound designer on Chernobyl and Joker, both Grammy-winning scores, and co-composed and producedBattlefield 2042 with Guðnadóttir, winner of the Society of Composers & Lyricists Award for Outstanding Original Score for Interactive Media.

His recent work includes Saros, the PlayStation / Housemarque release whose score has been singled out as a major part of the game’s world, and Mstyslav Chernov’s 2000 Meters to Andriivka, nominated for Best Score by the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, Cinema Eye Honors, and ASCAP Composers’ Choice Awards. He also composed Netflix/YRF’sThe Railway Men, winner of the Filmfare OTT Award for Best Background Music, and has contributed to projects including Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Mary Magdalene, Mandy, mother!, Chernobyl, and Joker.

At the center of Slater’s work is the creation of bespoke sound worlds. He works with sound at many scales, from self-built instruments, feedback systems, damaged electronics, and unconventional instrumental techniques to choirs, small ensembles, and major orchestral forces. His music has been performed by the London Contemporary Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the BBC Concert Orchestra, and vocal groups including Shards.

Across solo albums including Wrong Airport Ghost, I Do Not Wish To Be Known As A Vandal, and Lunng, as well as his work with the Prix Ars Electronica-recognized ensemble OSMIUM, Slater has developed a language of industrial sacred music, devotional noise, corrupted song-form, and sound design as composition.

Across formats, his focus is direct: to build deep, specific sound worlds that bring films, games, and television closer to the audience.