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John Carpenter has been responsible for much of the horror genre's most striking

soundtrack work in the fifteen movies he's both directed and scored. The themes

can instantly flood his fans' musical memory with imagery of a menacing shape

stalking a babysitter, a relentless wall of ghost-filled fog, lightning-fisted kung

fu fighters, or a mirror holding the gateway to hell. The all-new music on Lost

Themes asks Carpenter's acolytes to visualize their own nightmares.

"Lost Themes was all about having fun," Carpenter says. "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 wrote the songs for 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."

As is Carpenter's style, repetition is the key to the thundering power of these

tracks, their energy swirling with shredding chords, soaring organs, unnerving

pianos and captivating percussion. Horror fans will be reminded of Carpenter's

past works, as well as ancestors like Mike Oldfeld's Tubular Bells and Goblin's

Suspiria.

"They're little moments of score from movies made in our imaginations," Carpenter says. "Now I hope it inspires people to create films that could be scored with

this music.