MovieScore Media’s latest international release is the multi-award winning Los Lobos with music by Mexican-born composer Kenji Kishi. The film tells the story of a Mexican mother Lucía emigrating to the US with her two children, Max and Leo. The brothers’ days pass in a tiny flat waiting for her to come back as they hold on to the hope of visiting Disneyworld...

More an EP than a full album, Kenji Kishi's score for Los Lobos consists of 10 tracks (22 min, 19 sec). Stylistically it's interesting and certainly if you've seen the movie you'll already be aware of the fact that the music, thematically, is based around the main characters.

Talking about score, Kishi said: "I created the music based on the characters and the idea of emigration. I used the harmonica for the voyage, because I found it important to have a specific sound matching the winds of the desert. The sound of the piano represents the mother, Lucía. The simple theme I wrote for her is based on a major seventh interval, which sound dissonant in a very wounded way (the track title ’Cicatrices’ literally translates to scars). For elder brother Max, I used the the guitar in a rhythmic way which matched nicely with the harmonica whenever he makes a new discovery. Finally, for little brother Leo and the wolves animation sequences use the ukulele and a vibraphone in order to get into a fantasy universe, but the harmony it's the same of her mother's theme."

While it's a sweet little score, I really can't recommend it outside of the film it was composed for.

5

Darren Rea