Mädchen, Frau etc. (Soundtrack zur Hörspiel Serie)

Soundtrack

LEM-Studios

2024

Mädchen, Frau etc. is the soundtrack to the German audio adaptation of the brilliant novel Girl, Woman, Other. It’s an compelling and eclectic collection (or two) of music

I heard “I Belong to You” somewhere last week (I can’t for the life of me find where) and was instantly enthralled. There are so many overlapping influences and styles contained in these 3 minutes, it’s almost difficult to parse. Classic fuzz rock, African-infused soul, and hip hop or spoken word all come together in an irresistible groove:

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I immediately put that song on last Friday’s playlist and almost moved on, but then I saw that it’s part of a soundtrack and saved it for a deeper dive. Glad I did.

That track features vocals from South African musician Zawadi Yamungu and Berlin-based rapper and poet Sorvina. Turns out, this is the soundtrack to a german audio adaptation of Bernardine Evaristo’s 2021 novel Girl, Woman, Other, which is an absolute stunner of a book. More on that in a minute.

Sebastian M. Purfurst is the producer on the album – he’s a composer and artist, creative director of LEM Studios which seems to do audio and media design for installations. His profile on Spotify has a couple of other projects, one for a Spider-Man exhibit and others with his musical group called Soniconoclasm.

Mädchen, Frau, etc., is big and ambitious: 32 songs and 90 minutes long, but it’s made up of two distinct parts. The first 9 tracks are mostly proper songs, and the balance are more traditionally soundtrack instrumentals, titled “Chapter [character name]” with the name of the chapter added to the end.

The second song from the ‘front half’ (for lack of a better term) is called “Tribe” and it’s got a glorious lo-fi aesthetic to the production, with a wobble in the audio and the bass way up in the mix, it sounds like it’s playing through a vintage stereo:

The lead vocal on that track is by Denise M’Baye, an actress who has starred in several German TV shows and films.

The rest of the front half of the album is just as eclectic and engaging as the two songs above. Sorvina and Yamungo return for a more downtempo, moody and intense track called “In the Middle of the Ocean”. Sorvina’s verse in the last half of the track is killer:

The ‘back half’ of the record is all Purfurst. These are short compositions that I imagine accompany the various characters’ episodes. They’re instrumental and varied – some trip-hop, some ambient, some more orchestral, some abrasive and tense, like “KAPITEL AMMA Schlacht von King’s Cross”:

These tracks are all short, most under 3 minutes and several under 2, and leaves the impression of a killer mixtape by someone who really knows their stuff, or a collection of David Holmes deep cuts. It would be easy to pick a dozen of these to expand out into 6-minute tracks for a killer EDM record.

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve read Girl, Woman, Other, but it made quite an impression on me. The follows a dozen different women (or AFAB individuals) of different ages, and they intersect and interact in the leadup to the opening night of a play.

Hearing this, I’ll pick up the novel again. And if the actual audio play is as impactful as the soundtrack, I envy the German-speakers that get to enjoy it.