For your ears only: How music brought the new James Bond game to life

For your ears only: How music brought the new James Bond game to lifeImage source, IO InteractiveImage caption, The Flight - aka Alexis Smith (left) and Joe Henson - are the musicians behind the latest incarnation of James Bond (centre)ByMark SavageMusic correspondentPublished14 June 2026"Save your lips, because they are a finite resource."Abbey Road studios, November 2025. Conductor Matt Dunkley is testing the limits of the Chamber Orchestra of London.They've got just one half-day session to record 32 minutes of music for the new James Bond video game, 007 First Light. And that means four hours of non-stop puffing and blowing."It's mostly action music, so if you hate us by the end of it that's totally understandable," composer Alexis Smith warns the musicians as the day begins.Smith has been working on the score for the past two years with his co-writer Joe Henson (the son of Sherlock actress Una Stubbs).Today's the day it comes together, as 24 musicians breathe life into the music they penned in their cramped east London studio."The things you can do with software orchestral instruments nowadays is amazing," says Smith. "We absolutely need that as we're mocking things up, but then you come here and you have the best brass players in the world... It's mind-blowing."As the session starts, the duo – who go by the name The Flight – can't suppress their smiles."Take that to the bank," whispers Henson after a the first run-through.To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.This video can not be playedFigure caption, Behind the scenes with James Bond and The Flight at Abbey RoadIn the Bond universe, the music is almost as important as 007 himself.Monty Norman's surf guitar riff and John Barry's sweeping orchestral scores spawned an entire genre of spy music – full of minor key suspense and piercing stabs of trumpet.If you're one of the three million p...