There are not many Muslim action movies, so Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is already unique. Its music reflects the disparate elements at play in the film, too. Son Lux wrote the score for the Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios film, as well the song “Now I’m Listening,” which singer-songwriter Bilal performs with them.
The band members Rafiq Bhatia, Ian Chang and Ryan Lott spoke about reflecting the movie’s themes in the music in a virtual Q&A for Sound & Screen Film. Your Mother stars Mahershala Ali as Latif, a devout Muslim hit man. Bassam Tariq wrote and directed; many of Son Lux’s inspirations came from Tariq, they band said.
“A big part of the Islamic faith is that there’s this unknowable, ineffable feeling,” Chang said. “That was something that was very important to Bassam, he told us from the beginning, this kind of almost mystery with something that needed to be communicated in a way that was both dealing with mystery and the majesty of the unknowable.”
Tariq also encouraged Son Lux to utilize a vocal choir in the music. Lott said it led the band “to really investigate the power of the human voice both individually and also collectively. We found the soul of the score upon his urging to investigate more aggressively the use of the human voice.”
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The human choir more specifically incorporates Sufi Zikr chants. Bhatia said Son Lux drew from real men facing violence.
“Some of the most unforgettable ones were these Chechen rebels that were preparing for battle and doing chanting Zikr and doing breath work,” Bhatia said.
With vocalization, Son Lux could repeat words and phrases. This also reflected Islamic philosophies.
“In Islamic artwork and architecture, there is this idea of infinite geometry of these patterns that repeat endlessly to give an expression to the otherwise inexpressible, to communicate infinity,” Bhatia said. “Even if you truncate the Islamic creed and you just say ‘La ilaha,’ ‘There is no god.’ Or ‘La ilaha il,’ ‘There is no god but,’ if you take that and repeat it as an infinite pattern, that expression of doubt made infinite is actually its own expression of the infinite and the unknowable.”
Lott also credits Bilal with bringing their song to life.
Check out the conversation in the video above.
