The music of Swathi Mutthina Male Haniye is soft like a pillow, says composer Midhun Mukundan

A film about love, bonding, life lessons and more, all set against the backdrop of a palliative care centre, where end-stage patients come to live out their last days, needed special treatment as far as the music goes. The songs or the background score could, at no point, be an assault on the senses. And that is exactly the approach that composer Midhun Mukundan took on what was his fourth collaboration with actor-filmmaker Raj B Shetty – Swathi Mutthina Male Haniye. In theatres today, the film has two songs, one of which, Mellage, is out and well received.

It’s a no-brainer that Midhun would be a part of a Raj film, but he says that what appealed to him about this project was the honesty in the script. Speaking to the Kannada digital channel Filmy Fox, Midhun said that Swathi Mutthina Male Haniye is a film with no extra frills. “There are no elevations, goosebump-inducing or whistle-worthy moments in the film, and yet, at some level, audiences are bound to connect with the story. You may not have experienced the situations in the film, but you’d definitely know someone who has. It’s a film with pure emotions; that was the appeal and I wanted the music to reflect that. The music could, at no point, feel hard on the senses; it had to be soft, like a pillow,” said Midhun adding that it was an extremely creatively satisfying experience working on the film.

This is something that Midhun has told OTTplay also earlier, stating that his work on Swathi Mutthina Male Haniye is, without an iota of doubt, among his best to date . “Swathi Mutthina Male Haniye is one of my best scores. I’ve not done as much live recording for any movie as I have for Swathi and that is because I wanted the score to be at a different level. This is a unique film that deserved music that stands apart. I wanted it to sound a certain way and I went extra miles to achieve that,” he had told us.

The second song in the film is a Basavanna Vachana that Midhun has used as a composition for a pivotal juncture in the narrative. Apart from that, he says, the entire score consists of instrumental tracks. “Mellage was the only song that needed lyrics. The rest of the music expresses itself, which audiences will understand when they watch the film,” he adds. Swathi Mutthina Male Haniye, written and directed by Raj and starring Siri Ravikumar, Balaji Manohar, JP Thuminad, Gopalkrishna Deshpande and Sandhya Arekere, among others, releases in theatres on November 24.

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