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LA composer and musician Jon Natchez (The War On Drugs, Beirut, David Byrne, St. Vincent) scores stunning, award-winning Maltese independent movie Luzzu for Phantom Limb’s Geist im Kino soundtrack imprint.
The film tells the story of a young fisherman struggling, under the scorching Maltese sun, with the sea’s diminishing returns, with his newborn son’s illness, with his partner’s judgemental family, and with the slow death of a tradition that his family has practised for generations. As money worries tighten their grip, Jesmark - magnificently portrayed by undiscovered nonprofessional actor Jesmark Scicluna - finds himself caught between morality and tradition, survival and responsibility. Camilleri’s screenwriting is challenging and potent, his portrait of rural Malta alive with vibrancy and colour.
Jon Natchez’s soundtrack expertly interweaves these themes. Barely-whispered woodwind chords light up dusty trails of synthesis. Propulsive percussive layers chatter with heady Mediterranean clamour. Mary Lattimore’s harp peeks out from clouds of sunwashed strings. In one profoundly stirring scene, the local priest wordlessly blesses the multitude of tiny, solo fishing vessels (the luzzu of the movie’s title) heading out for the day’s catch, guarding them against the tempers of the sea as he rows from one boat the next. Natchez makes the sequence both intense and tender with gently flowering Baroquish melodies.
Tracklist
A1. Not Even God Will Stop It
A2. The Care He Needs
A3. Knock Him Into The Sea
A4. Need Any
A5. Fill Their Nets
A6. Scraping Off
A7. The Foreign Chill
A8. Give Me The Rope
A9. Afternoon Nap
A10. Like The Other One
A11. Happy?
B1. Once There Was A Boat
B2. End Credits
B3. That's The Normal Kind
B4. This New Hawker
B5. All I've Got
B6. The Swordfish
B7. A Good Bit of Work
B8. Nothing's Biting Today
Soundwave
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kPHPM8kYQE