Although Mazzaro says that there was no film to score, just the idea of a brand, he sought an instrumentally eclectic and cinematic ensemble. He elaborates: “In a film, you have a colour palette, a setting and all these different things. You must curtail your instruments to fit the mood and the location. But with Bentley, because it is a brand, I really had to think, ‘What does Bentley represent?’”

   According to the composer, this entailed “elegance, class but also power, speed and mechanical complexity”. In terms of the instrumentation, he says: “Guitars, plus powerful, heavy low synths really stood out to me. There are also these very technical drums combined with intricate hand percussion. As with the workings of a car, you don’t see them, but you know they are there, working in the background.”

   When writing a film score, he will ordinarily ‘spot’ the music with the director – in other words, he will locate the musical cue points within the edit. By its very nature, the Bentley-Naim project didn’t require such an approach, but the composer says it shares several principles with the standard tenets
of feature-film scoring.

   “I wanted to take the listener on a journey,” the composer explains. “In a funny way, I wanted the essence of a film to be in a listener’s subconscious mind. I wanted to have a flow to this piece by starting a specific way and then leading the person somewhere.

   “It starts with this kinetic energy with my friend El Amir playing rhythmic flamenco guitar. Then the hand percussion is introduced, and the drums and other instruments. I got Juan García-Herreros on bass, and Holly Madge and Satnam Ramgotra on the various percussive elements including hand percussion and drumkits.

Although Mazzaro says that there was no film to score, just the idea of a brand, he sought an instrumentally eclectic and cinematic ensemble. He elaborates: “In a film, you have a colour palette, a setting and all these different things. You must curtail your instruments to fit the mood and the location. But with Bentley, because it is a brand, I really had to think, ‘What does Bentley represent?’”

   According to the composer, this entailed “elegance, class but also power, speed and mechanical complexity”. In terms of the instrumentation, he says: “Guitars, plus powerful, heavy low synths really stood out to me. There are also these very technical drums combined with intricate hand percussion. As with the workings of a car, you don’t see them, but you know they are there, working in the background.”

   When writing a film score, he will ordinarily ‘spot’ the music with the director – in other words, he will locate the musical cue points within the edit. By its very nature, the Bentley-Naim project didn’t require such an approach, but the composer says it shares several principles with the standard tenets
of feature-film scoring.

   “I wanted to take the listener on a journey,” the composer explains. “In a funny way, I wanted the essence of a film to be in a listener’s subconscious mind. I wanted to have a flow to this piece by starting a specific way and then leading the person somewhere.

   “It starts with this kinetic energy with my friend El Amir playing rhythmic flamenco guitar. Then the hand percussion is introduced, and the drums and other instruments. I got Juan García-Herreros on bass, and Holly Madge and Satnam Ramgotra on the various percussive elements including hand percussion and drumkits.

   “At this stage, I wanted everything to be done with smaller instruments, but be powerful ones, organic and kinetic. I then introduced this big, cinematic orchestra, before ending with an orchestral, electronic, explosive culmination.

   “I definitely tapped into the instincts I would usually deploy on a film. Also, I really wanted to push the power of the Naim audio system and see what it was capable of. It became more of a technical endeavour. There are many speakers, so I wanted to try lots of panning effects, bouncing the sound from left to right. I am scoring the driver’s seat.”

Mazzaro lauds the “phenomenal” playing of his close friend Tina Guo whose electric cello phrasing “has a feeling of infinity” when compared to the instrument’s acoustic equivalent. It is another example of how his music embodies the limitless feeling of the open road, and the kinetic thrill that is contained in the act of driving.

   “I’m a composer and I love creating music,” he summarises. “I just love creating things and there are other people in the same vein. Individuals who make cars, who draw and design the systems found in cars – it is all creation. We all feel that joy from being able to create something out of nothing.”