Horror Director Legend John Carpenter’s Debut Album ‘Lost Themes’ Preceded By New Song “Vortex”: Listen

If you’re even a casual horror movie fan, chances are you caught one of director John Carpenter‘s films at some point in October, whether it be Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York, The Thing, Starman, They Live or Vampires. The through-line in each of those (and the dozens of other films Carpenter directed) is their simple-yet-compelling electronic scores. True movie buffs know that John Carpenter was right up there with Giorgio Moroder when it came to cementing movie moments in viewers’ minds by way of music throughout the ’70s and ’80s. (His father, by the way, was a music professor.)

Cut to the present, and Carpenter is readying the release of his debut album, Lost Themes (out February 3). The LP features nine cinematic songs, which John worked on with musician Daniel Davies and son Cody Carpenter. The first taste comes in the form of the thrillingly ominous, synth- and piano-driven opening track “Vortex,” which you can watch a special, custom-made video for set to clips from Carpenter’s movies over at the Sacred Bones Records site.

In a press release, Carpenter states the following:

“Lost Themes was all about having fun. It can be both great and bad to score over images, which is what I’m used to. Here there were no pressures. No actors asking me what they’re supposed to do. No crew waiting. No cutting room to go to. No release pending. It’s just fun. And I couldn’t have a better set-up at my house, where I depended on (collaborators) Cody (Carpenter, of the band Ludrium) and Daniel (Davies, who scored I, Frankenstein) to bring me ideas as we began improvising. The plan was to make my music more complete and fuller, because we had unlimited tracks. I wasn’t dealing with just analogue anymore. It’s a brand new world. And there was nothing in any of our heads when we started other than to make it moody.

“’Both classical music and rock and roll are part of my musical language, which is riff-driven. So if you listen carefully, I’m sure you can hear some echoes from my past. But I’m sure that’s true of any composer. You just bring your music along with you.”

Who knew one of the 2015 albums we’re most anticipating would come from John Carpenter?

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