Filmmaker John Carpenter to Revisit Greatest Hits on New Album
For two albums now, filmmaker and composer John Carpenter has created what he’s dubbed “lost themes” – icy, minimalistic electronic musical ideas without movies to accompany them. Now he’s putting out an album on which he has reconstructed some of his greatest hits.
The album, Anthology: Movie Themes 1974 – 1998, collects 13 works from his film oeuvre – including Halloween, Escape From New York and Assault on Precinct 13 – newly recorded with his son, Cody Carpenter, and godson, Daniel Davies, who both worked on Carpenter’s previous releases. It covers his films from his low-budget 1974 debut, Dark Star, to 1998’s Vampires and will also include a cover of Ennio Morricone’s theme for Carpenter’s film The Thing. The record is due out October 20th.
“[My soundtrack work] started in film school because when you’re making a student film, you have no money,” Carpenter told Rolling Stone in 2014. “You get your friends to act and you get the cameras. So people would ask me to score stuff, and then for my first feature – when again we had no money for music – I went ahead and did the score.”
The first track Carpenter is releasing from Anthology is the theme to his 1994 horror film In the Mouth of Madness. “I worked on the soundtrack for In the Mouth of Madness with Jim Lang,” he said in a statement. “We never came up with a great main title theme. … I came up with a heavy metal theme inspired by Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman.’ My friend Dave Davies played lead guitar, and now, over 20 years later, his son Daniel is playing the lead. [It’s] one of my favorite themes.”
In addition to CD, LP and digital releases, Anthology will be available in several limited-edition deluxe vinyl formats. Four come with colored-vinyl seven-inches: “Christine Red,” “The Fog Over Antonio Bay,” “Halloween Orange” and “Dark Star Deep Space.” Only the “Fog” release will be available in U.S. stores; the rest will be either available outside of the States on tour or via his label, Sacred Bones’ mail order. The mail order will also offer the album without a seven-inch in “Anti-God Green.”
Carpenter will support the album on the road. Tickets will go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. local time. The dates are listed below the Anthology track list.
Anthology: Movie Themes 1974 – 1998 Track List
1. “In the Mouth of Madness”
2. “Assault on Precinct 13”
3. “The Fog”
4. “Prince of Darkness”
5. “Santiago (Vampires)”
6. “Escape From New York”
7. “Halloween”
8. “Porkchop Express (Big Trouble in Little China)”
9. “They Live”
10. “The Thing”
11. “Starman”
12. “Dark Star”
13. “Christine”
John Carpenter Tour Dates
October 29 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Joint at Hard Rock Casino
October 31 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Palladium
November 2 – Anaheim, CA @ City National Grove
November 4 – San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield
November 5 – Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst
November 7 – Maplewood, MN @ Myth Live
November 9 – Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom
November 10 – Detroit, MI @ El Club
November 12 – Toronto, ON @ The Danforth Music Hall
November 13 – Montreal, QC @ Metropolis
November 15 – Boston, MA @ Royale
November 16 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5
November 18 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Trocadero
November 19 – Syracuse, NY @ The Palace Theatre