Cliff Martinez - The Knick S01

Martinez crafted most of the music for The Knick using electronic software emulators like synthesizers. He also used a baschet cristal instrument – which combines vibrating rods and fiberglass plates, a favorite instrument of musique concrète composers – and electric guitar. It all worked with Soderbergh's vision of an electronic score for the series, an idea influenced by the score to the 1981 film Gallipoli, another nostalgic period piece that used electronic music.

Accordingly, the soundtrack album for The Knick features song titles that might seem more appropriate on an album by a death-metal band like Carcass than at TV series: "Abscess," "Aortic Aneurysm Junior," "Placental Repair," "Pretty Silver Stitches," "Son of Placenta Previa." "With The Knick, I decided I should name some of the things after the procedure that they accompany," Martinez says. "They're meant to be practical. I also go to the BMI website, the royalty collection society I belong to, and make sure nobody else has the title; you'd be amazed at how off-the-wall titles can be duplicated throughout the world. 'Son of Placenta Previa,' nobody had that yet. I may not have bothered to look that one up."