Who needs a fungal fever dream when you’ve got Kenny Kusiak designing your series’ soundscape? Seriously, the world of Common Side Effects (CSE) would be lost in silence — or worse, generic audio templates — if not for Kusiak’s relentless magic behind the mixing desk. Let’s journey into the quirky heart of his audio wizardry, where hallucinations buzz and fungi crawl, and every zap, crunch, and tremor slimily wriggles straight into your brain.
Diving Into the Trippy: Hallucinations on Blast
Let’s be honest, the hallucinations in CSE aren’t your garden-variety fever fantasy. They’re lush, uncomfortable, and sometimes just plain weird. But sound makes them come alive in wild, unpredictable ways.
Kenny doesn’t just reach for stock “woosh” effects. He dives deep, grabs normal sounds from everyday life — a humming fridge, or maybe a bus groaning past on a rainy night — and then bends them until they almost break. By twisting pitches up and down, and layering over faint metallic clangs or breathy hums, he creates a sense of floating halfway out of your body. Think about that: you’re hearing a refrigerator, but it suddenly sounds like the inside of your own head going sideways. He takes cues from greats like Gary Rydstrom, who layers real-world noises to build ethereal, goosebump-inducing moments. No wonder those hallucination scenes hit you in the gut… and maybe give you chills.
So next time a character stares wide-eyed at the wallpaper twisting into tentacles, remember: under that moment is a cocktail of sounds you’d almost — and here’s the secret — recognize. But not quite. That uncanny valley stuff? All Kenny.
Fungi in Stereo: When Mushrooms Attack
Let’s talk about fungi. On CSE, these aren’t the friendly mushrooms in grandma’s risotto. They slither, pulsate, and take over bodies and minds. How do you give fungus a voice worth fearing?
Kusiak tackled this challenge with boots-on-the-ground curiosity. He strolled through parks, crunched dead leaves, and even squished his hand into damp earth — all while recording every squelch and rustle. Back in the studio, he tweaked and twisted those natural sounds, sometimes slowing them down, sometimes piling on subtle distortion so your skin crawls just listening.
But he didn’t stop there. Sometimes, Kenny layered in the brittle crackle of decomposing wood or the sticky rip of peeling bark. You end up with a palette of fungal sounds that are both oddly beautiful and distinctly gross. Honestly, you wouldn’t want to put these sounds on a meditation playlist, but they instantly transport you to the spore-riddled madness CSE revels in.
For example, during scenes where fungal tendrils creep along walls, your ears pick up faint popping bursts and soft wet crinkles. It feels almost tactile, like the fungi are slithering straight through your headphones. Kusiak borrowed techniques from animation and adventure films (remember “Antz”?), fusing environmental audio with fantasy, and making it all feel freakishly alive.
Bullets, Beats, and Blasts: Action Gets Loud
If you’ve ever realized your heart is pounding during a CSE action sequence, thank Kenny. Action in this show is never just visual, never just about what crashes into what.
Kusiak’s approach? Layer, layer, layer. A punch scene is not simply a punch. Maybe he starts with a fist in a sandbag, then mixes in a little snapped twig for bone-breaking effect, and a whip crack for energy. He’s not shy about adding extra bits: swinging ropes, shoes scraping debris, breathing — whatever cranks the adrenaline.
He’s in good company here. Sound designer Jon Johnson once researched and recreated submarine interiors to get just the right amount of echo. Kenny brings the same level of obsessive detail, but with the CSE flavor. Sometimes a crash reverberates longer than real physics allow, just to make your stomach flip. Or a gunshot picks up a zinging aftershock, blended from doorbells, glass breaking, and metallic clangs. Every boom and crackle is calculated chaos.
This dreamy chaos isn’t about overwhelming your ears. It’s about tricking your mind into believing the stakes are life-and-death — even before anyone even yells “duck!”
Music and Sound: No Borders Allowed
Here’s a chef’s kiss move: Kenny Kusiak plays both sides of the audio game. He’s a composer at heart, but he doesn’t put music and sound effects in separate boxes. Instead, he lets them dance together. The ambient score often interlocks with environmental noises. An eerie theme might leak into the wind. A faint vocal harmony might flutter out of static, like an audio hallucination nobody on screen can hear.
This blending creates a seamless flow through every scene. You never quite know if you’re hearing the world or the soundtrack — or if the two are melting together. It’s a style gaining traction in the industry, but Kenny doesn’t just dabble. He runs with it at a full gallop, inspired by top sound artists like Enos Desjardins, who loves letting music and sound design overlap for maximum suspense. The end result? It’s never just background noise. The sound shape-shifts, weaving emotion and tension deep into your bones.
Collaboration: Two (or More) Heads Are Better Than One
No soundscape gets this lush by accident. Kenny teams up with other creative brains to get the right mix. On CSE, his partnership with GDH Music stands out. Together, they stretch the limits of what the show’s world should feel like, letting different audio textures crash and merge. If you’ve noticed moments that just sound weirdly… new? That’s more than likely them, tag-teaming all the way.
It’s not all big moments, either. Some of the best aural magic happens on the margins, in those blink-and-you’ll-miss-it transitions or in background spaces. That humming, churning energy you can’t quite place? It’s probably a group brainstorm in full swing, with Kenny stitching it all together like a mad scientist. Their collaboration means no two episodes sound the same, so the world stays fresh and unpredictable.
All the Little Tricks: Secret Ingredients
Kusiak’s toolkit isn’t just standard-issue. He brings in unusual microphones, records in odd places, and sometimes even manipulates his own voice (not that he’ll always admit it). You might hear:
- Subtle breathwork, turned metallic and cold, layered into fungal sequences.
- A refrigerator hum dissected and stretched for synthetic tension.
- Acoustic echoes, made in stairwells and hallways for an authentic sense of space.
- Old vinyl crackle woven into music cues, blurring the line between soundtrack and background.
These oddball touches keep the soundscape nimble and alive, pulling your senses in again and again.
Truth in the Noise: Sound Tells the Story
Kenny Kusiak doesn’t see sound design as an afterthought or simply a layer added after editing. Instead, he uses it as a core storytelling tool. Every chirp, rattle, or heart-thumping pulse jumps in with purpose. Hallucinations swell in the mix to disorient, fungi shimmer in stereo to creep you out, and action scenes thump and whoosh to ramp tension.
He deliberately avoids safe choices. He’ll drive you to that delicious edge where reality warps into something more dangerous and engaging. The scenes blur, buzz, and boom, all because the soundscape isn’t just following the plot — it’s pushing it forward. For CSE, that feels essential.
So, What’s That Strange Noise…?
After a marathon binge of CSE, you might be hearing things — static in the walls, whispers in the fridge, echoes when you close your eyes. If so, blame (or thank) Kenny Kusiak. His fingerprint on the series is unmistakable: a nonstop push to break old habits, layer up the tension, and ambush us every time. He’s one-half mad scientist, one-half musical poet, and totally essential to why CSE lingers in the mind long after credits roll.
So next time you find yourself jumping at a harmless pop or shiver because of a distant, ghostly echo, remember the man at the soundboard. Kenny Kusiak transformed the noise of everyday life into something wild, immersive, and deeply, gloriously weird. And with that, he’s handed us a universe you can’t just watch — you have to listen to, all the way down to your core.
