{"id":373520,"date":"2026-03-30T20:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T20:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/373520\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T20:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T20:25:08","slug":"the-nightmarish-sounds-of-squid-game-composer-jung-jae-il-having-no-identity-very-much-defines-my-identity-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/373520\/","title":{"rendered":"The nightmarish sounds of Squid Game composer Jung Jae-il: \u2018Having no identity very much defines my identity\u2019 | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you were among the 265 million viewers who made Squid Game Netflix\u2019s most-watched series<\/a> so far, you were likely left mentally and aurally scarred by first season\u2019s end, traumatised by the discordant whistle of a child\u2019s recorder; the sheer banality of a primary school music room reimagined as a herald of human carnage.<\/p>\n

That sound was the work of composer Jung Jae-il, whose career has been defined by this sort of strange and unsettling contradiction; he is a master in the art of subverting all that is musically familiar \u2013 recasting the naive, the genteel, and the elegant into the chilling harbingers of horror.<\/p>\n

Squid Game is Netflix\u2019s most-watched to date. Photograph: Entertainment Pictures\/Alamy<\/p>\n

And in April, after a world tour that saw him sell-out solo performances at the Barbican in London and Carnegie Hall in New York City, he will be making his Australian debut at the Sydney Opera House, conducting a 41-piece orchestra in the soundtrack he composed for the most Oscar-decorated non-English language film in history, Parasite.<\/p>\n

Jung, 43, a graduate from the Seoul Jazz Academy, is a formidable multi-instrumentalist, having mastered the piano, guitar, bass, drums, traditional Korean percussion, and even the musical saw. Yet for Squid Game<\/a>, he reached for an instrument he has never mastered.<\/p>\n

It was not a child playing the show\u2019s opening theme, but Jung himself. He had expected he would be ordered back into the studio with a professional recorder player.<\/p>\n

Jung performing in Prague in 2025. Photograph: CTK\/Alamy<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a professional or an expert recorder player,\u201d he says, through an interpreter. \u201cWe actually tried to correct it with auto-tune later on. But the director [Hwang Dong-hyuk] decided that the correct sound did not sound right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resulting opening theme to Squid Game is a masterclass in calculated imperfection, a series of thin, piercing notes that frequently break into shrill, unintended squeaks. These are the sounds of an amateur struggling for breath, for control, that became an auditory metaphor for the desperation of the doomed contestants on the screen. That sense of extreme unease was baked into the very flaws of the recording. While most scores strive for digital perfection, Jung leaned into the human fallibility of the instrument, a deliberate subversion of his own technical prowess.<\/p>\n

Jung\u2019s career path was unconventional: at 15 he joined a rock band, and he has never formally studied composition. His creative practice is rooted in improvisation, something he says he learned to accept while composing the Parasite score.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very much in despair,\u201d he says, of his struggle with the conventional composition process while creating Parasite\u2019s distinctive sound. \u201cThen one day, I sat down in front of my computer and improvised as much as I could, and that actually got the OK from [director] Bong Joon-ho<\/a> \u2026 I thought, maybe this is what I am destined to do. Maybe there\u2019s something wrong with me or my way of working, but this is my path to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Squid Game was built on the broken sounds of childhood, Parasite utilised the cool formality of the baroque to illustrate class divide, providing the soundtrack to a scathing critique of modern Korean society. Parasite became the first South Korean film to win the Palme d\u2019Or at Cannes, and the first non-English speaking film to win best picture<\/a> at the Academy Awards. Director Bong also collected Oscars for best director and best original screenplay.<\/p>\n

Parasite became the first non-English speaking film to win best picture at the Academy Awards. Photograph: BFA\/Alamy<\/p>\n

Jung was catapulted from studio hermit to global stage presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter my work in Squid Game and Parasite, my music gained global recognition \u2013 not necessarily my name, but definitely my music,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In 2025, his third collaboration with Bong \u2013 the sci-fi comedy Mickey 17<\/a> \u2013 was released. Here, Jung shifted towards the grand with the London Symphony Orchestra. Swirling waltzes, romantically classical in style, added a disturbing veneer of elegance to scenes depicting what was essentially a human printing factory.<\/p>\n

In December, his new orchestral piece, Inferno, had its world premiere with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that had I gone to any kind of formal musical institute or conservatory [to learn composition], I would not have been able to write a piece like this,\u201d he says. \u201cThe fact that I start with a clean slate or a blank page means that I can tap into all kinds of music that I\u2019ve been listening to since my childhood \u2013 rap, heavy metal, rock, and very modern, avant garde music. At the end of the day, having no identity very much defines my identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018At the end of the day, having no identity very much defines my identity\u2019 \u2026 Jung Jae-il Photograph: JC Olivera\/Deadline\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

As he prepares for his next chapter, including a project with Burning director Lee Chang-dong and a new album with Decca Records, Jung is increasingly focused on live performance as a bulwark against the rise of artificial intelligence. His transition to the stage is more than a victory lap; it is a strategic act of preservation. He views the concert hall as one of the last bastions of what is authentically human in music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we are all very much in the dark,\u201d he says. \u201cAI can be seen as a threat when it comes to music composition or music creation. With that in mind, I think it\u2019s all the more important that we look for something fundamentally human, something only humans can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Jung, that fundamentally human element is found in the very discordance that defined his rise; the improvised, the unpolished, the squeaky mistakes that no machine would think to make, and no auto-tune could ever improve.<\/p>\n

By stepping out from behind the screen, he is offering his audience a final, defiant assurance: that the man at the piano is not an algorithm but a human being, still at work in the dark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you were among the 265 million viewers who made Squid Game Netflix\u2019s most-watched series so far, you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-373520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}