Sacred Bones US Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Essex based composer and music producer Robin Carolan is the man behind the acclaimed Tribute Angle label. He's worked with a fine array of artists including Bjork and Holy Other and now links with Seb Gainsborough who makes electronic and orchestral music as Vessel. This is the first time the pair have worked with director Robert Eggers on a score together and the results speak for themselves. It is harsh and uncomfortable with a dirty aesthetic that is designed to match the film, The Northman, and does so with great sympathy and respect to the authenticity of the Viking era period piece.

Review: NYC's Sacred Bones delivers some quality recordings yet again. This time legendary American horror film director John Carpenter gets the remix treatment by an all-star cast giving his eerie and epic synth excursions some brilliant revisions. There really is some true gems on here. Prurient gives "Purgatory" an injection of his typically morbid and distorted extreme noise terror. Skinny Puppy's legendary frontman OhGr gives "Wraith" an immersive dark industrial makeover while Silent Servant gives "Vortex" his typically stylish and razor sharp EBM vibe, albeit a slower one than usual. On the second disc another industrial music legend and (Zola Jesus collaborator) J.G. Thirwell works his magic on "Abyss" and PAN label boss Bill Kouligas gives "Fallen" one of two remixes; his staying on the soundtrack vibe of the original but giving it a futuristic, high fidelity revision like you'd expect from him.

Review: The legend John Carpenter is back with a new album, Lost Themes II. What more can we say other than the fact that the man is a multidisciplinary powerhouse. The director behind such classics as The Thing and Escape From L.A. presented the first volume of unreleased soundtracks from the crypt last year, followed up by a brilliant remix compilation featuring the likes of Silent Servant, Skinny Puppy's Nivek Ogre and Zola Jesus amongst others. On this volume, Carpenter's unmistakeable sound for these imaginary soundtracks has many a nugget, our favourites were the ever perfect arpeggiations of "Persia Rising", soundtracking the most beautiful of Arabian nights, the indisputable vintage charm of analogue machines on the wonderfully epic "Windy Death" and the tribute to another true legend of the big screen on "Bela Lugosi" you could just imagine F.W Murnau making his grand entrance as you hear this unearthed classic.

Review: Another burst of contemporary-sounding gems from John Carpenter film scores, and this is good news to both the collectors and the sample junkies. On this latest missile we have the famous brooding synths and trite '80s romance of "Assault On Precinct 13", still a much coveted album by the diggers and one that is often heard on the more expansive DJ sets; the B-side is made up of "The Fog", a 1980 piece of history that once again manages to contain a true 80's spirit without the predictability of many sings from that era. Wonderful and, of course, highly recommended.

Review: Sacred Bones is not messing around when it comes to reissuing mythical songs from legendary soundtracks across the board, and their latest releases truly do get the old mouth-watering. This new picture disc contains 1979's "Halloween" on the A-side, and 1981's "Escape From New York", both timeless films that have left viewers awestruck thanks to, in part, their fantastic scores. You'll all recognise that Halloween chimes, those eerie chimes of coldwave synths, but perhaps Escape From New York is less immediately recognisable, but that's a shame because it is potentially the less aged of the two and still a track to break a set in half with something beautiful and unexpected.

Review: Don't believe the hype - we certainly don't. Halloween Ends, 2022's trilogy-concluding horror flick that brought the story of evil Michael Myers to a bone chilling climax, is almost definitely not going to be the last time we hear the terrifying piano riff John Carpenter came up with for his original 1978 slasher classic, Halloween. Nor will it likely be the final outing for the mask-wearing, knife-wielding menace of Haddonfield, Illinois; fictional town the franchise centres on.

Let's face it, the most recent outing in the saga only represented the conclusion of the last three films, but since the first time there have been 13 movies, many comic books, one video game and tons of merchandise. All that aside, you can believe the hype surrounding the latest score, which sees synth and atmosphere master Carpenter, alongside son and regular collaborator Davies, invoke the eerie unease that first catapulted Halloween into the pantheons of all-time greatest scare fests. Don't sleep after listening, then; who knows what's out there.

Review: Before we get into it, let's just stop to consider what it must be like to be John Carpenter' son. A titan of horror, science fiction, and fantasy filmmaking who overcame early critical smiting to garner first a global cult following and more latterly reappraisal and recognition from the cinematic institution, while the reality of having this cultural powerhouse as a parent probably isn't along these lines, we like to think childhood was one long creative play session where imagination was only held back by the need to sleep.

Spurious point made, this latest addition to JC's musical oeuvre sees him team up with offspring Cody - a musician and composer in his own right - and long-time collaborator Daniel Davies for the score to the most recent reboot in the Halloween franchise. You can't touch a classic, of course, but what the actual movie lacked in originality the music more than compensates for, taking what was already an unsettling and chilling aural experience and modernising without fundamentally changing.

Review: RECOMMENDED
At the end of the day John Carpenter could present us with infinite takes on the original Halloween tune - that creepy piano masterpiece - and we'd gobble up everything he has to offer. It's a simple case of four notes, or thereabouts, played in a repetitive loop, and it seems to conjure the most disturbing mental images you can imagine. A stroke of genius, you might say.

Halloween Kills is essentially the reprise of all that made the original movie score so powerful. There's not much here that didn't feature in the inaugural franchise outing, but in 2021 the raw and decidedly pared back atmospheres have been built on, expanded, born again, but crucially not ruined. Is John Carpenter the greatest film musician of all time? Hans Zimmer may disagree, but we say "of course".

Review: Is John Carpenter the most formidable force in 20th Century US moviemaking? He must certainly be in the running. Say what you will about the genres he focuses on (horror, suspense, sci fi, slasher, those details aren't significant. Instead, what's important to remember is that for decades the director has dedicated his career to creating not just vivid on-screen worlds, but atmospheres and feelings. Taking ownership of his own scores is a big part of that, and in many ways Carpenter's tunes are as memorable as his plots. Here joined by son Cody, and Lost Themes I & II sparring partner Daniel Davies, many of the most iconic tones, keys, melodies, and hooks from more than 20 years of cinematic delights are presented as new - and we couldn't be happier.

Review: To understand Didn't You Hear the soundtrack it's important to get a bit of the back story behind this obscure and genuine rarity. Didn't You Hear the movie was a little-known and unarguably strange 1983 cinema release that barely made it to many screens, but was notable for two reasons - it's one of the earliest acting credits given to Gary Busey, and it features one of the first all-electronic scores, by non-other than Canadian composer and synth pioneer, Mort Garson.

The work still sounds impressive. For the most part it clearly feels like a film score, but some tracks more than stand up on their own grounds. The subdued chaos of 'Bamboo City' could be used by techno and electro DJs today, 'Virgil's Theme' is a reflective slice of melodic ambience, while 'Death Talk & Jeep Approach' is a sparse, minimalistic electronic-classical masterpiece.