Karl Sölve Steven is a composer of bold, cinematic reach, whose latest work cements his place among New Zealand’s leading screen music voices.
Best known as the former frontman of funk-rock band Supergroove, Steven now finds himself at the heart of a distinctly Kiwi story: “Pike River,” a feature film that examines national history through loss, resilience, and justice.
Three-time Emmy nominee Melanie Lynskey and acclaimed New Zealand actress Robyn Malcolm star as Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse, two ordinary women who together stand up and take on the government, justice system and a company that will stop at nothing to protect itself, after the 2010 Pike River Mine explosion takes the lives of 29 men underground.
The film explores the powerless versus the powerful — people against profit, right against wrong — through the lens of an extraordinary female friendship and the determination to never give up.
And who better to score it than Steven, the award-winning Kiwi/Swedish composer known for his emotionally resonant work.
Recorded at Roundhead Studios in Auckland and Wellington with the Stroma Filmworks Orchestra, Steven’s score balances intimate human drama with a national narrative.
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He speaks of the film as a mirror held up to 21st-century Aotearoa. “If we don’t tell these local stories,” he tells Variety AU/NZ, “I don’t suppose anybody else will.”
He says watching the complicity of the country’s elites, as they “circle the wagons” to protect the pursuit of wealth at all costs against the safety and interests of those less powerful, and seeing that play out in 21st Century Aotearoa, is a stark experience.
“It’s also striking to see the resilience of the families in seeking justice against every hurdle placed in their way. So it’s a story about our own society that’s at once shocking and powerful and I was keen to help tell it if I could,” he adds.
Working from his home in Pārāwai Thames, a once-thriving gold rush town at the southwestern end of New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula, Steven says composing for a story so close to home has been “an absolute privilege.”
“This is something that really happened, and with repercussions that people are still very much living through, so contributing in any way to bringing this story into cultural focus feels very special indeed.”
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The film demanded a score that could navigate both its emotional core and its wider cultural impact. This was a challenge Steven met with a flexible, cinematic sound palette.
“The priority was for the music to deliver the full arc of the journey emotionally; to move with them every step of the way without getting either too far ahead or feeling like the story has moved on while the music is still treading water,” he explains.
“This necessitated quite a wide musical palette, with some instruments and themes more connected with the men, others more connected with the institutions of power, and still others speaking to the emotional worlds of our main characters. It’s a big film, with a national scope but also a film made up of extraordinarily intimate moments, so the musical themes needed enough flex to be able to be expressed with a full string orchestra (and bagpipes!), or with just a couple of players. It was definitely a formidable challenge, but I’m enormously pleased with the results.”
Collaborating with the film’s director Rob Sarkies, known for his “total commitment” to storytelling, further elevated the project.
“His artistic aspirations are very high, and his knowledge of the craft of filmmaking is extremely detailed and wide-ranging, all of which means that he pushes his collaborators to bring their absolute best work and surpass their own expectations about what’s possible artistically,” he says.
“Pike River” is in New Zealand cinemas now.