Thom Yorke: Suspiria (2LP, soundtrack, pink vinyl) [XL RECORDINGS]

Why you'll love it

This pink 2LP set comes in a matte gatefold jacket. The score reached No. 13 in the UK and scored 82 on Metacritic, and "Suspirium" earned a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Pink vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• Stereo mix

About the album

Remaking a horror classic takes nerve; scoring one whose original music belongs to Goblin takes rather more. Thom Yorke's answer was to steer well clear of the 1977 soundtrack altogether. He spent around a year and a half on his first film score, finishing much of it before the cameras rolled so Guadagnino could play it on set, and he leaned on Blade Runner, musique concrète and the 1977 Berlin krautrock of Faust and Can for inspiration.

Yorke produced it with Sam Petts-Davies at Memory Has No Holes and AIR Lyndhurst, his first project since The Bends without Nigel Godrich behind the desk. The London Contemporary Orchestra and Choir, fresh from Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool, add strings and voices under Hugh Brunt, and Yorke's teenage son Noah plays drums on "Has Ended" and "Volk." "Suspirium" is a fragile piano waltz with flute, "Has Ended" rolls on a dubby bassline, and the 14-minute "A Choir Of One" stacks Yorke's own voice into eerie microtonal harmonies. Piano, guitar, flute and modular synths do the rest.

It went to No. 2 on both the UK and US independent charts, and Rolling Stone called the vocal tracks vintage Yorke. Pink vinyl for a film about a coven of dance teachers is a bold choice, and we'd suggest playing it with the lights on.

Also at Kops: more Thom Yorke on vinyl · browse Soundtracks

Tracklist

Listen

On XL Recordings (cat# XL936LP), the 2018 soundtrack.