“If I were you, I’d run away/Get out while you still can,” Thom Yorke sings on his new song “Knife Edge.” “‘Cause this to me is life or death/And all I think about.” The pensive song, which ambles along slowly with piano and sparse strings, comes off the soundtrack to Confidenza, a new film by director Daniele Luchetti (My Brilliant Friend).
The music video for the tune shows footage from the movie, which is based on author Domenico Starnone’s novel of the same title about a doomed couple. After a quarrel, Teresa (played by Federica Rosellini) asks Pietro (Elio Germano) to talk about the thing he feels most ashamed of. They break up and Pietro falls in love with Nadia (Vittoria Puccini) but just before their wedding, Teresa resurfaces with a warning for Nadia. As with the original book, the film, produced by Netflix, is in Italian; it opens in theaters in Italy on Wednesday.
Yorke wrote the soundtrack, which will come out digitally this week and physically on July 12. Another track from the soundtrack, “Prize Giving,” finds moody horns ascending and descending over herky-jerky, Italianate percussion. The atmosphere sounds funereal, likely adding to the tension of the plot. Eventually a voice (Yorke’s?) joins in and mirrors the brass.
Confidenza is Yorke’s second film score, following 2018’s remake of Suspiria. That score was nominated for several awards, including a Grammy.
Sam Petts-Davies, who has produced and/or mixed releases by Yorke’s band the Smile and Radiohead and who co-produced the Suspiria soundtrack, worked again with Yorke on Confidenza. The London Contemporary Orchestra performed the orchestral parts of the score, while the jazzy parts were played by an ensemble that included multi-instrumentalist Robert Stillman and Yorke’s Smile bandmate, Tom Skinner.
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Confidenza Track List:
1. “The Big City”
2. “Knife Edge”
3. “Letting Down Gently”
4. “Secret Clarinet”
5. “In the Trees”
6. “Prize Giving”
7. “Four Ways in Time”
8. “La Confidenza”
9. “Nosebleed, Nuptials & Doubt”
10. “A Bunch of Flowers”
11. “A Silent Scream”
12. “On the Ledge”