In 2022, inveterate New York rockers Yeah Yeahs made a grand return with Cool It Down, their first album in nearly a decade. With that out of their systems, the different YYYs have all seemingly gone back to their regular lives. For bandleader Karen O, that means helping out an old friend on a new movie soundtrack.
For a long time, Karen O has been tight with former Flux Information Sciences/SERVICES member Tristan Bechet, who records as TRZTN. Bechet was part of Karen O And The Kids, the group who scored Spike Jonze’s 2009 Where The Wild Things Are movie. In 2021, Karen O guested on TRZTN’s track “Hieroglyphics.” Now, Bechet has scored The Seeding, a new indie horror film about feral kids who keep hostages out in the desert. Karen O’s husband Barnaby Clay directed the movie, and she appears on one “Alina’s Lullaby,” which is not to be confused with her own 2019 track “Anti-Lullaby.” It’s a spare, eerie acoustic song that plays over the end credits. Here’s what Karen says:
I was happy to add my touch; a tender lullaby, with a subliminal “off” quality. The first rendition of “Mother’s Song” was in gibberish; Barny liked the idea of the words being in an old dialect from Eastern Europe. Through a friend of a friend, Tristan tracked down an English priest who was a missionary in Romania who knew Romani Chib. Tristan recorded the priest, who had the loveliest countenance, translating a poem that Barney had written for the film, and from the lot I formulated the lyrics. The “cuckoo” part of the song was an idea I had from a Brazilian song about a bird that Barney’s mother used to sing to him when he was little. I loved the idea of this lullaby feeling authentically passed down from generations and in its own way was deeply personal to Barney’s own origin story. I’m also pleased to be following a lineage of horror film lullabies, deliciously skewed by their context. Rosemary’s Baby lullaby being the holy grail of course.”
TRZTN’s score for The Seeding also features Einstürzende Neubauten’s F.M. Einheit and cellist Okkyung Lee. Below, listen to “Alina’s Lullaby” and watch the trailer for The Seeding.
The Seeding and its soundtrack are out now.
