Experiments under pressure

In 2016 director Luca Guadagnino approached Thom Yorke about working on the music for his upcoming remake of Suspiria. Hesitant at first, Yorke found himself to be excited about the idea of working inside someone else’s vision and contextual theme. Out of Guadagnino’s framework, Yorke crafts an hour’s worth of haunting musical sketches sprinkled around meatier tracks that feel more like full songs than atmospheric wallpaper.

The first two tracks “A Storm that Took Everything” and “The Hooks” are tense and do their job painting a spine-chilling backdrop to a scary film. The lead single “Suspirium” showcases Yorke’s knack at creating accessible, interesting melodies. Leaning on his strengths of power in minimalism, he uses a piano, flute and his voice to great effect. “Has Ended” features more of Yorke’s melodic singing and some unexpected psychedelic krautrock instrumentation. The lumbering groove and synth drone under Yorke’s cool crooning, creating a unique trance.

“Unmade” is not unlike “Suspirium.” Yorke’s moody piano playing is accompanied by ethereal and in-your-face choral pads. It’s a fine track but like a lot of songs on the soundtrack, without the visuals of the film, they are just contextless slices of Yorke trying to be cinematic and spooky. But even with that reservation, Yorke does an excellent job of not being over traditional in his scoring, and he takes the stereotypical horror soundtrack and adds a touch of raw experimentalism. He’s not always banging on the creative ceiling, yet songs like “Volk” showcase his avant-garde flavor. The track builds and builds, switching between tense angular strings and foreboding synths. The release in tension is indicated by loose banging sequenced drums.

Most of the tracklist is composed of synthesizer sketches, eerie drones and warped glitchy electronics over dissonant strings.  All elements that work well as a film’s backdrop, but these are not full songs. Even so, Yorke does a fine job concocting a diverse array of dramatic, cinematic and refreshing sounds, and songs where he layers in his vocals and adds more instrumentation and structure really steal the show.