“Il compleanno (The Birthday)” is the lead-off track to Giallo and an homage to the music of psychological horror cinema.
Inspired by Fabio Frizzi’s famous theme for Sette note in nero (The Psychic; 1977), I wanted to use a repeating musical motif to introduce the album's themes of psychological sickness, fractured identity, and spiritual terror.
The lyrics draw on the horror trope of the body hidden in the wall—which appears in giallo classics like Sette note in nero and Deep Red (1975)—as a metaphor for the parts of the self that are slowly walled off by complex trauma. I also wanted the song to serve as a prologue to the album's central tension between the loss of belief and the desire to find meaning in suffering.
The full digital album arrives October 30.
