The tone of Pedro Almodóvar’s new film, a heady cocktail of ecstasy and neurosis, has been captured brilliantly by composer Alberto Iglesias in this absorbing soundtrack, which mirrors the film’s narrative between past and present, image and image-making. Following the director’s injunction that the music should convey a mood of stealth, Iglesias sets the scene with “Tema de amor ciego”, where low strings bring to the fore the darker side of this tale. In “Peeping Tom”, guitar then oboe catch the neuroses of character and location that wouldn’t be out of place in a David Lynch film. Iglesias expresses these tensions and anxieties with the lightest of touches, using flecks of colour sparingly, heightening drama through suggestion and allowing the music its own airy discourse. For the film-within-a-film, he’s adapted a zambra, a flamenco form which begins on violin and is taken over by saxophone, underscored by pizzicato strings and the kora, an African instrument resembling a harp that adds its own unique timbre. The burnished voice of Flamenco singer Miguel Poveda follows, adding a mournful touch. Other voices on this soundtrack, drawn from recordings made as far back as 1972, carry a contemporary frisson in their mixture of acoustic and ambient sounds and off-the-wall vocals. Iglesias’s compositions are beautifully recorded and played by an expert band of musicians. Broken Embraces – or, to give the film its Spanish title, Los abrazos rotos – is a compelling soundtrack to relish.