For their soundtrack to The Turning, producers Lawrence Rothman and Yves Rothman didn’t want to just reuse recognizable music from the ’90s era in which the horror film is set. Instead, they tapped modern artists to record new songs that would create a unique but nostalgic vibe. Following Courtney Love’s “Mother”, Soccer Mommy’s “Feed”, and “Getting Better (otherwise)” from Turning star Finn Wolfhard’s new band The Aubreys, the latest sample of the Rothmans’ efforts comes in the form of Empress Of’s “Call Me”.
The new song is a perfectly serene bit of early-’90s dream pop. Over a wash of synths and echoing percussion that David Lynch would surely find undeniable, Empress Of’s Lorely Rodriguez sings longingly, “Call me, call me, call me young and useless/ But when you call me, call me, call me/ Who will answer?”
Said Lawrence Rothamn of the song,
“When writing the track with Lorely, Yves and I had the idea of writing something that was dreamy and processional; the movie’s swan song. it became a track that [director] Floria Sigismondi used on set a lot to set the mood when shooting the scenes of the dreamlike limbo that the ghost Ms. Jessel [Denna Thomsen] is trapped in.”
(Read: 13 Horror Movies We’re Screaming to See in 2020)
Take a listen below. The Turning soundtrack is out via KRO Records/Sony Music Masterworks on January 24th, the same day the film hits theaters.
Meanwhile, Empress Of has summer festival appearances lined up at California’s Lightning in a Bottle and Michigan’s Electric Forest. Get tickets to all her upcoming dates here.
