Plaza Mayor Company Ltd release Andre Matthias's score for The Gravedigger's Wife. Guled and Nasra are a loving couple, living in the outskirts of Djibouti City with their teenage son Mahad. They are facing difficult times: Nasra: urgently needs an expensive operation to treat chronic kidney disease. Guled is already working hard as a gravedigger to make ends meet: how will they find the money to save Nasra and can they keep the family together...?

The soundtrack for The Gravedigger's Wife is a haunting, reflective work that is easy to get lost in. Soundscapes give way to subtle themes, all with an African core.

Discussing the score, composer Andre Matthias says: "For Khadar Ayderus Ahmed's tender story about love and hope my goal was to create an intimate score built around solo instruments and voices. Yet I did not want the vocals to sound “sung“ but rather to add a human sound that did not draw attention to itself. So even though much of the music features vocals it does not necessarily feel that way. While The Gravedigger's Wife is basically a monothematic score (the lines and harmonies of the main theme are interwoven into almost every track) the scene in which Guled and Nasra tell their story called for a new theme. In the film it appears only once, but I incorporated it into my unused end credit music for this album to end their story fittingly."

Technically beautiful it's not, however, a soundtrack that will appeal to everyone. The long drawn out ambient background aspect make this an album that only just stands on its own merits. It's undoubtedly better heard in the movie where it adds much emotion.

I did enjoy this score, but it's not one I'd want to revisit all that often. Technically flawless, but you really have to be in the right frame of mind to listen to this on its own merits.

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Darren Rea