By John Morrow
John Carpenter’s reputation as a film maker, both in the underground and in commercial film circles, remains legendary. His uncanny blend of horror, sci-fi and all-out action, not to mention his choices of actors and their memorable characters, make for unique and highly entertaining genre cinema. Perhaps the one element that viewers overlook simply because it’s a natural element of movies is the soundtrack to his films, either composed or co-composed and performed by the man himself. In hindsight, his synth-driven soundscapes are as integral to the overall experience as the script or performances, and they have inspired many, many soundtrack composers and synthwave artists over the years.
My first exposure to Carpenter was his 1981 box office hit, ‘Escape From New York’ (still one of my favourite movies of all time). It was a gritty, violent view of the near future with massive performances from Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, and Adrienne Barbeau (what a cast!) and it was a proper adrenaline-pumper. The minute that the main title theme hit the speakers, I was sold on the director and his entire world, as fantastic and addictive as it was, and it caused me to seek out everything he had recorded with fervent fanboyism. Imagine my head exploding when I heard the main theme from ‘Halloween’ for the first time!
He has withdrawn heavily from the director’s chair in the past decade, but his time away from movies has opened up space for creating music with his son and fellow synth-magician Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies, his godson (and son to Dave Davies of The Kinks) with exceptional guitar skills. They released ‘Lost Themes’ in 2015, an album of brand new, improvised music that created nostalgia for us Carpenter soundtrack addicts and brought a whole new generation to “that sound”. It was followed up with ‘Lost Themes II’ in 2016 (another cracker, by the way) and ‘Anthology: Movie Themes 1974 – 1998’ in 2017, where they re-recorded all his classic movie themes for posterity and provided kickass driving tunes for the ages. The group then blew minds with their soundtrack to the 2018 retcon of the ‘Halloween’ franchise before considering where they were headed with the ‘Lost Themes’ series. And boy, did they bring out the big guns for that third round.
The title track and album opener to ‘Lost Themes III: Alive After Death’ is one of his finest compositions in the past three decades, a sprawling banquet of sound and ambience. It has all the regular Carpenter tropes dressed in top-form bells and whistles, Gilmour-esque guitar leads, and a haunting melody that will sit in the consciousness for weeks at a time. As with all his audio work, the album feels like a soundtrack to a badass movie (regardless if it is or not): ‘Weeping Ghost’ is haunting and eerie; ‘The Dead Walk’ is danceable fascination that evokes zombies without even trying; ‘Skeleton’ is bold and meticulously paced; and ‘Dead Eyes’ is what I would imagine a nightmare sounds like if scored by the best of the best. The whole record is filled with atmosphere and genre-dread, and the ten songs play through like sonic honey in the ears. The duelling synths between father and son are emotive and complex in their simplicity, the guitars shift from melodic soaring joy to brutal, dark riffs, and the energy is retained from beginning to all-too-soon end.
The three musicians are clearly at a point where they are so comfortable with each other on a musical level that improvised score-type sounds are simply what they do. If the listener didn’t have any background to what they were hearing, they would, without a shadow of a doubt, be wondering what movie this soundtrack was from, and that’s the genius at play here. For fans of this kind of synth-heavy/futuristic music, this family-cosy group are the kings of all they behold.
Whether or not Carpenter returns to making movies again at his age and at this point in his career is up in the air (but please, just return, okay?), but as a musician he excels on levels that would make Trent Reznor shake in his boots. With each successive release, the man oozes talent and tops whatever came before, and that’s difficult even for talented professional musicians, but damn if he doesn’t make it look easy (it’s not, by the way). The year is young and there are many exciting scheduled musical releases ahead, but I can tell you right now without a doubt in my mind that this shiny nugget of electronica will still land in my top five for 2021 and will be on my playlist consistently, because it’s just that damn good. Do you enjoy music that wraps around your brain and won’t let go? Look no further, folks – this is the real deal.
- ‘Lost Themes III: Alive After Death’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.
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