Emile Mosseri

Emile Mosseri first gained notice as a participant in the New York indie pop and rock outfit the Dig before channeling his efforts into introspective art-rock material and wide-ranging scores for cinema and television that consistently center human stories. His approach shifts across sweeping orchestral passages, introspective keyboard writing, and lighter chamber configurations according to each project's demands. Early assignments encompassed the 2019 feature The Last Black Man in San Francisco and the 2020 Amazon suspense series Homecoming. The 2020 picture Minari brought him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. He later joined forces with vocalist and composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith on the experimental double release I Could Be Your Dog/I Could Be Your Moon. Heaven Hunters marked his initial solo album in 2023, followed a year later by the cross-genre collaboration Hardy Boys alongside avant-garde musician Sam Gendel. In 2025 he returned with tryin to be born, a second solo pop album tracked alongside a compact rhythm section.

Raised in New York City, Mosseri began creating music with childhood friend David Baldwin well before their teenage years. Throughout high school the pair rehearsed in a space adjacent to the Strokes. Mosseri subsequently pursued film-scoring studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston, after which he and Baldwin regrouped to establish the Dig. Serving as co-frontmen, the duo guided the group through an assortment of stylistically varied albums and EPs in the first half of the 2010s that fused luminous synth-pop textures with ringing guitars, psychedelic elements, and atmospheric indie-pop sensibilities. Mosseri delivered his debut feature-length score in 2016 for the independent comedy How to Tell You're a Douchebag. The Dig maintained an active schedule of touring and recording, issuing the 2017 album Bloodshot Tokyo together with the 2018 EPs Moonlight Baby and Afternoon with Caroline.

The 2019 critical reception of The Last Black Man in San Francisco elevated Mosseri's standing as a composer. In 2020 he scored Miranda July's Kajillionaire and the second season of Homecoming. By then the Dig had reconvened under the name Human Love and put out the EP Black Void. Early 2021 brought broader attention when his Minari score earned an Oscar nomination. Around the same time he initiated a partnership with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith that yielded the atmospheric I Could Be Your Dog, issued that September by Ghostly International; the companion set I Could Be Your Moon followed, completing a full-length exploration of electronic textures and vocals. Produced by Bobby Krlic (the Haxan Cloak) and released on Mosseri's Greedy Heart Records in June 2023, Heaven Hunters blended contemplative indie rock, orchestral writing, and indie electronica within song structures. That year also saw the appearance of the soundtrack to the 2022 film When You Finish Saving the World, comprising Ziggy Katz songs alongside Mosseri's instrumental indie pieces. A more exploratory direction surfaced on 2024's Hardy Boys, the joint album with Sam Gendel that incorporated electronic, jazz, chamber, and pop idioms.

Reconvening with Krlic, Mosseri enlisted guitarist Meg Duffy (Hand Habits), bassist Dougie Stu (Brijean, Bells Atlas), and drummer Kosta Galanopoulos (Magic Giant, Luke Temple) to track his next solo album at Altamira Sound in Alhambra, California. The resulting tryin to be born appeared on Greedy Heart Records in February 2025.