The White Noise soundtrack's first confirmed banger: LCD Soundsystem's first song in five years
"New Body Rhumba" will be released later this year
Perhaps with only a first trailer for the film out, it’s too soon to call it a match made in heaven—but this writer is going for it anyway. LCD Soundsystem’s first song in five years, “New Body Rhumba,” will feature on the soundtrack to Noah Baumbach’s long-awaited film White Noise, Variety reports. The song will be released later in 2022, and although the film lacks an official release date, a presumably similar timeline stands.
LCD Soundsystem, long the lungs of Brooklyn’s dance-rock scene, hasn’t released an album since 2017's American Dream, which won the group their first Grammy. Before that, LCD Soundsystem disbanded in 2011, performing a farewell concert at Madison Square Garden chronicled in the 2012 documentary Shut Up And Play The Hits. Just last year, the group revived their Brooklyn Steel residency with 20 planned shows—the final few were canceled due to the Omicron variant surge.
On the other end of the pairing: White Noise, an adaptation of the darkly comedic social commentary by Don DeLillo, stars Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver. The film follows a college professor and his family as they navigate both literally and metaphysically an unexplainable “airborne toxic event.” The atonal, ambient nature of LCD Soundsystem’s body of work feels like the soundtrack to a Baumbach disaster-lite movie if ever there was one—plus, legendary musician and composer Danny Elfman is contributing the score.
LCD Soundsystem and Baumbach’s collaboration is also a strong play for recognition at this year’s Academy Awards. Randy Newman’s work in Baumbach’s 2019 film Marriage Story garnered a nomination for Best Original Score, and Baumbach seems ready to prove he’s no coincidence. If the potency of the first LCD Soundsystem song in half a decade can combine with the maniacally wonderful energy of Elfman’s 2022 Coachella set, accolades may only be a matter of time.