My Love Affair With Marriage
(Cd)

This is a (mainly Google) translation of the Dutch review.

The animated film My Love Affair With Marriage is mainly a Latvian production, in collaboration with companies from the U.S. and Luxembourg. This musical animated film is directed by the Latvian Signe Baumane, who also wrote the story and screenplay, the lyrics for the songs, contributed to the realization of the animations and the production. In short, it is her film in which she wanted to tell her story, about growing up from a girl to a woman and how culture determines how women should live, though maybe they wish for a completely different life. Main character Zelda is such a woman. The English-language film received rave reviews and won the several awards and nominations.
The story revolves around Zelda (voice Dagmara Dominczyk), who does not feel like a woman as is expected of her. She has longed for love since childhood, while she is bullied at school and is often alone at home. She is accompanied by the Mythological Sirens (voices Trio Limonāde), who influence her through songs, to become a woman as men would like to see her, with marriage as the prize. But there is also Biology (voice Michele Pawk), who points out her individuality and personality. This sets the scene in which Zelda plays the leading role, to discover who she really is...

The music for this film is from the Italian composer Kristian Sensini, who previously collaborated with director Baumane on her film Rocks in my Pockets. He attended masterclasses on film music led by renowned composers like Michael Giacchino, Randy Edelman, and Christopher Lennertz.
Director Baumane wanted quite a few songs for this film, for which she had already written lyrics. Sensini then composed the music for it. And they have certainly become surprising songs, which in the film are often sung by the Sirens, performed by the Latvian singing group Trio Limonāde. Not only the lyrics are strong, and above all funny, but the varied music fits perfectly with those lyrics, without becoming too comedic.

The album has a running time of approximately 47 minutes, while there are 48 tracks. Two thirds of the tracks are much shorter than a minute. For the film that may have been necessary, but on this album it does not improve the listenability, because it sounds a bit messy. Yet many score tracks, despite their short playing time, are quite nice, while you are easily taken into the flow of the music.
The score tracks are regularly alternated with the songs. That doesn't really work out well on many soundtrack albums, but here it works very well, especially because the song compositions fit well with the style of the score music.

The variation between the relatively short tracks is quite large, although the overall coloring of the music ensures a nicely fitting whole. Some tracks have a somewhat magical coloring, others a more pop music-like style, still other tracks contain some Eastern or Caribbean sounds, or even electronic sounds and noises. But almost solo instrumentations also occur, such as a violin in 'A Gallery in Denmark', or percussion in 'I had no Idea'. However the music of all those tracks is quite pleasant to the ear, and the songs certainly contribute to this, because those songs also have the same musical variation.

Don't expect large-scale orchestrations or compelling electronic, full-sounding melodies. The music is light in tone and sometimes a bit on the minimalist side, but it is certainly also melodious and is mostly pleasant to the ear. The album closes with a song that was also released as a single. This title song with the subtitle 'Lion' is a beautiful, smooth and varied song with a wonderful melody. The song is sung particularly appealingly by the American singer Storm Large.

In short, with his music for the animated film My Love Affair With Marriage, Kristian Sensini has composed a very pleasantly listenable score, in which a large number of songs are integrated, to which the score fits in well. The album contains a large number of tracks that are on average quite short. That doesn't help with the enjoyment and comes across as a bit messy. Yet Sensini has kept that variety of short musical colorings in a more or less consistent style of harmonious, light melodies, played by a limited set of instruments. This brings the rating to a nice 76 out of 100 points.