Luca Guadagnino is continuing his reign of 2024 with the release of the buzzy original soundtrack to “Queer,” as composed by Academy Award winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
The trio — or rather, foursome including screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes — collaborated on both “Queer” and “Challengers” this year, with the score for the latter even becoming a club track and earning a Grammy nomination. Guadagnino, Reznor, and Ross will also work together on “After the Hunt.”
The “Queer” soundtrack boasts original song “Vaster Than Empires” featuring iconic Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso, plus Omar Apollo’s “Te Maldigo.” Guadagnino directed Apollo’s “Te Maldigo” music video; Apollo made his acting debut in “Queer.”
“Vaster Than Empires” is the end credits song written by Reznor and Ross with vocals by Veloso. The lyrics were directly lifted from author William S. Burroughs’ memoirs.
“Queer” stars Daniel Craig as William Lee, an American expat and WWII veteran who is living in Mexico City in 1950. His encounter with Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) changes both of their lives in the adaptation of Burroughs’ unfinished novel.
Reznor and Ross were inspired by Burroughs’ “cut-up literary technique” when crafting the score, according to a press statement. The composers “utilized sampled instrumentation to create a recurring palette of gauzy, ethereal solo piano and woodwind orchestrations that continue to intensify into a final fevered pitch of electronic synths and Motorik-tinged textures.”
One of the key musical moments in the feature is the main theme “Pure Love,” which is a “dreamlike composition of piano and strings that echoes the tender romanticism between the two main characters,” the description reads. Reznor and Ross resampled and processed the original cue with tonal and textural shifts to mirror the deepening relationship between the two central characters.
Milan Records is releasing the “Queer” soundtrack.
Check out the track list below and download the album here.
- “Vaster Than Empires” — Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Caetano Veloso*
- “Pure Love”
- “Centipede”
- “God Had to Create”
- “Thinking is Not Enough”
- “The Saddest Man in the World”
- “That’s Him”
- “Wouldn’t You?”
- “Love Would Shatter”
- “Place of Failure”
- “Real Enough”
- “No Holy Grail”
- “No Final Satori”
- “No Final Solution”
- “Just Conflict”
- “LOVE.”
