Charli XCX has dropped a new song, “House,” featuring rock legend John Cale, co-founder of the Velvet Underground. The track is the first single from the singer’s soundtrack for Emerald Fennell’s forthcoming adaptation of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.
“House” is a mostly spoken-word neoclassical darkwave track punctuated by menacing strings, industrial guitar stabs, and a clipped, electronic beat. “Can I speak to you privately for a moment?” Cale intones, setting a portentous mood from the start. “I’m a prisoner to live for eternity.”
Directed by Mitch Ryan, the video for “House” is equally as ominous as the song itself. The clip, which finds Charli and Cale roaming a dimly lit house and the surrounding woods, strikingly match cuts Charli’s dark waves with the glistening hide and black mane of a horse and the wings of a vulture, which is tethered to a bed. “I think I’m gonna die in this house,” Cale and Charli repeat with increasing intensity, as he holds her head down on a table.
Watch the video for “House” below:
Wuthering Heights hits theaters on Valentine’s Day. The soundtrack is due next month.
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