MAH.

MAH, is the sixth time that composer Navid Hejazi has collaborated with film maker Armando Ravelo, MAH, is set in what we call the Canary islands centuries ago, and it focuses upon a Mother who has to defend herself and her child from hunters who are unforgiving and brutal. The score for the movie is in a way quite raw and primitive, as in it is no way scored in the traditional fashion, the composer has created lilting and affecting themes for the Mother and her baby, but has also composed quite stark and savage sounding music to accompany the relentless human hunters who are pursuing the Mother. The percussive elements which the composer has employed are unnerving and ominous in their style and sound, creating a fearsome and unsettling air. This is particularly evident in track number three, AMENAZA, which is powerful piece that includes various percussive sounds and an almost rasping voice, that gives the piece an even greater sense of dread and urgency. This style and the atmosphere created via it is also present in track number four, GUANARTEME/LA BUSQUEDA, it is in my opinion even more of an apprehensive and threatening mood that the composer purveys here, which a dark and sinister mood being fashioned by otherworldly atonal textures. Track five APARICION is brief, but it grabs one’s attention with its use of a malevolent sounding voice that is calling in a hushed but at the same time sinister way, which sends shivers through the listener, or at least this one. Going back to the beginning of the recording INICIO, is the track that opens the soundtrack, in many ways this can be likened to the work of Vangelis, especially on his score THE APOCALYPSE OF THE ANIMALS, or at least the opening of the cue that is, because it soon alters direction musically, and segues into a darker and more atonal piece.

 

Track number two, TITULOS/LA CUEVA also opens in a lighter mood, but again soon descends into a more trouble and urgent persona, percussion again forming the foundation, to a tense and shadowy affair, but then this also relents as a lighter more subtle and melodic motif begins to be introduced, the piano performance which is fleeting and subtle creating a fragile and vulnerable sounding passage, that brings forth a beautiful melody performed by strings, that is touching if albeit brief. Overall this is an inventive score, ok it may not be the most lush or even the most lavish sounding work, but the subject matter obviously did not call for this style of scoring, and the composer has fashioned a soundtrack that is not only effective but innovative. Recommended, available on digital platforms from Plaza Mayor Company.