Antoni Maiovvi’s killer score for Can Evrenol’s 2017 horror film Housewife is coming out Friday via Lakeshore Records. Vehlinggo is giving you a taste of it a few days early, though, with the premiere of the extended disco version of the film’s main theme.
Housewife centers on a woman who, as a kid, saw her mother kill her father and sister. As she grows up, she’s haunted by dreams of the event. Then she meets a celebrity psychic and all hell breaks loose in her psyche.
Among the things for which Maiovvi, co-owner of Giallo Disco Records, is known is his synth-infused scores — whether for actual films, such as Abdullah or Yellow, or ones not yet made. But for Housewife, Evrenol’s English-language debut after the phantasmagoric Baskin, Maiovvi overall went a more organic, orchestrated route (aside from the disco cut above). Below, the English-born composer tells us a little about the story behind the score.
Serendipity
I was in a hotel in Houston (my first time there) waiting for my friend Mike Textbeak to arrive, as we were traveling to SXSW together, when I got the mail from Can. My dear friend Ryan Haysom (who directed Yellow, the first short film I worked on) recommended me, for which I’m very grateful.
This was the first film job I’d had in a while, and though it was technically the third feature film I’ve worked on, for various reasons not many people had seen the first one (because of a distributor going bust) and the other for not being available yet (Fonotune premieres at SITGES this year, though sadly I cannot attend). Honestly, before I got the mail from Can I was thinking of hanging up my hat when it came to trying to have a career in film music. It was pretty good timing.
Can and I of course had worked before because Giallo Disco had released the soundtrack to his short film version of Baskin. We (and also Muge, the producer, who cannot go unsung) met at a party held by the Finnish Film Council at the Berlinale about a year prior — an event I snuck into because I had long hair at the time. It was an open bar. I shouldn’t need to tell you how that evening went. But Can and I had a natural kinship: We liked a lot of the same movies and music and we communicated well.
Horror Disco
Mostly, the disco mix was done for fun, but once it works in context to the movie I think it lets the audience go out on a sort of high. I love horror movies and I love Italo Disco, and even if it wasn’t in the film I would have insisted it go on the album.
The Housewife score releases on Friday, Sept. 28, via Lakeshore Records, with a vinyl release via Burning Witches Records to-be-announced. The film comes out on VOD and physical media via RLJE on Oct. 2.
Housewife stars Clementine Poidatz (and David Sakurai. It had its world premiere at L’Etrange Festival in France.
