Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke might be on the cusp of releasing a new album with his side project, the Smile, but he’s still somehow finding openings in his schedule for other projects. In addition to Wall of Eyes, which is set for release on January 26, Yorke has also composed the score for Trust, the new drama by director Daniele Luchetti.
The film, based on the novel Confidenza by Domenico Starnone, is set to make its debut in competition at the Rotterdam Film Festival.
Thom Yorke performs with the Smile at Festival d'été de Québec on July 14, 2023 in Quebec City, Quebec
Yorke and Luchetti first collaborated on the documentary Codice Carla, a documentary about Carla Fracci, Italy’s grand dame of ballet.
“We had done this weird pairing of classical music with these tracks,” Luchetti told Variety. “At the end of this work I asked Thom if he wanted to write the score for a film.”
Although Yorke told Luchetti that he didn’t have much time, Luchetti nonetheless sent over a copy of the screenplay, which – a few months later – resulted in a call from Yorke, saying that it had “evoked some musical threads.”
“He said, ‘For the moment I’ll send you a piece. If you like it, we can keep working together.’ It was a beautiful surprise and a lovely gift.”
Prior to this, Yorke had also done the score for the 2018 remake of Suspiria by director Luca Guadagnino. He'd also been approached way back in 1999 to do the score for David Fincher's Fight Club, but he turned down the opportunity because he was recovering from stress at the time. (Ah, what might have been...)
For this particular collaboration, Yorke worked hand in hand with Luchetti, watching the dailies; Luchetti would tell Yorke whatever subtext he'd provided to the actors to deliver within their performances.
“We always found a way in sideways; building the music more through the subtext than through the narrative itself,” Luchetti told Variety. “We were constantly searching for something that sounded a bit off.”
The end result consists of classical orchestral strings and for a jazz orchestra, as well as a substantial electronic music component.
While there's no set release date scheduled for the Trust soundtrack (although it's surely only a matter of time before one is announced), here's hoping that aforementioned new album by the Smile will keep Yorke fans satisfied in the interim.
