Much of the power of the best films by the cult director John Carpenter can be attributed to their use of music — music that, more often than not, was composed and performed by Carpenter himself. What began as a necessity for the low-budget productions by Carpenter became a major part of his aesthetic, and established him as a pioneering figure in genre- film score work as well as electronic music in general. Now, flanked by his son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies, and with two albums (Lost Themes and Lost Themes II) of non-soundtrack material under his belt, Carpenter has decided to revisit some of his most beloved themes.

Halloween was Carpenter’s breakthrough as a feature film director. Made for $300,000, it was the most profitable independent movie of its day, and to date has spawned several sequels, becoming an renowned franchise; its stories, characters and scores known the world over. The film’s pulse is the eerie 5/4 piano theme that Carpenter places at the center of its pivotal scenes. It’s a classic theme that stands tall alongside Psycho, Jaws, and The Exorcist as one of the most famous – and greatest – in horror movie history.

The dystopian action thriller Escape From New York is another Carpenter classic, uniting the director with his greatest muse, Kurt Russell. The minimal synthesizer theme that tracks Snake Plissken’s journey across this ravaged vision of NYC is one of Carpenter’s defining works as a composer.

Assault on Precinct 13 was the first feature film Carpenter made after film school, and he made it partially as an urban reimagining of Rio Bravo, a film by his idol, Howard Hawks. Assault is a classic, not least of all because it has perhaps Carpenter’s best-loved theme. The theme’s main synthesizer line, partly inspired by the score to Dirty Harry and Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” is catchy and dread-inducing in equal measure.

Carpenter’s theme for The Fog is one of his finest, and creepiest. The spooky synthesizer tone in Carpenter’s composition evokes the advance of the fog itself, helping to make this a quintessential horror score for a classic horror movie.

These 12" releases include the themes to Halloween b/w Escape From New York and Assault on Precinct 13 b/w The Fog, newly rerecorded by Carpenter and his Lost Themes bandmates. May it serve as a bridge between the Horror Master’s legendary, still relevant past and his remarkable present.

Each double A-sided 12' will be available in deluxe limited edition mylar mirrorboard sleeves and as picture discs.

Watch the live studio video for "Escape From New York" below, directed by Carpenter himself. It was filmed at The Village Recorder studio in Los Angeles and offers a preview of The Horror Master’s forthcoming historic debut live performances.

In the clip, he is accompanied by his son Cody Carpenter on synthesizer and his godson Daniel Davies on guitar, with John Spiker on bass, John Konesky on guitar and Scott Seiver on drums.

John Carpenter's US tour kicks off this month! Special blue and red vinyl editions of these 12"s will be available exclusively at the live performances. See full 2016 tour dates below.

John Carpenter live dates:

May

27 Greece, Athens – Piraeus Academy

28 Greece, Athens – Piraeus Academy

30 Denmark, Copenhagen - Koncerthuset - Koncertsalen

June

02 Spain, Barcelona – Primavera Sound

14 US, Seattle – Paramount

15 US, Portland - Arlene Schnitzer

17 US, Oakland - Fox Theatre

18 US, Los Angeles – Orpheum

19 US, Phoenix – Mesa Center for the Arts

21 US, Denver - Gothic Theatre

23 US, Austin - Moody Theatre @ ACL LIVE

24 US, Dallas - Majestic Theater

July

03 Iceland, Ásbrú ATP - Iceland

06 Switzerland, Neuchâtel - International Film Festival

08 US, New York - Playstation Theatre

09 US, Philadelphia – Keswick Theatre

10 US, Pittsburgh – Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall

12 US, Washington DC - Lincoln Theatre

15 US, Detroit - The Masonic Temple

16 US, Chicago – Thalia Hall

18 US, Milwaukee – Pabst Theatre

August

26 Italy, Turin – Today’s Festival

28 Italy, Rome - Auditorium Parco Della Musica / Santa Cecilia Hall

October

23 UK, Bristol - Simple Things Festival

28 UK, Manchester - Albert Hall

29 UK, Manchester - Albert Hall

31 UK, London - Troxy

Appearing prominently on many of DREKKA's releases, including both recent DREKKA LPs for DAIS RECORDS, Belgian singer, ANNELIES MONSERÉ has long been a collaborator, muse, and source material for DREKKA’s sonic explorations and dream-cinema soundscapes.

Primarily the work of Mkl Anderson, DREKKA's sound owes debts to the poetic soundscapes of CINDYTALK or COIL, to the ARTEMIEV soundtracks for the films of TARKOVSKY, and to the gravity of early industrial acts such as EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN.

To form his cinematic soundscapes, Anderson often delves into his archive, digging up forgotten snippets of the voices of friends, some long gone and some present still. Listening to DREKKA is like observing the process of remembering. Each old cassette handled, each sound manipulated is a snippet of memory, an association made.

Although sourced from the original recordings that Annelies Monseré made for her second album, 'Marit' (2009, Auetic), this is not a record of remixes. Anderson reworked and embellished the original recordings in Ghent, Belgium and Bloomington, Indiana over the course of six years, beginning three years before ‘Marit’ was even mixed or released.

The result is a novel kind of collaboration. Monseré's plaintive, intimate vocals are couched in Anderson's extremely textural, almost somatic collages, leaving us with the sense of a daydream, comfortable and somehow nostalgic. Monseré's haunted piano, occasionally sounding like it was lifted from the most elegant HOWARD SHORE film score, is a patient voice in an urgent scene. VERJAARDAG feels like a lost record, long forgotten to be rapturously rediscovered, although it has only just been made.

The album features guest appearances by NATHAN AMUNDSON (RIVULETS), JESSICA BAILIFF (KRANKY RECORDS) and JUSTIN VOLLMAR.

This release is part of the BLUESANCT ‘art vinyl’ series; presented as 22 minute EP on SIDE A with a beautiful screenprint of Annelies' handwritten liner notes printed on SIDE B. It comes in a full-color jacket with printed insert and download code and is limited to 250 copies.

Previous releases in the BLUESANCT art vinyl series have included CINDYTALK, MOUNT EERIE, BODUF SONGS, and PANTALEIMON.

The album will be avant-premiered on May 28th between 2PM and 6PM in presence of the artists at de Kleine Hedonist, Sint Jacobsmarkt 34, 2000 Antwerpen !

Again an unique compilation by leading Belgian re-release label Walhalla Records, specialized in Minimal synth. Following the widely acclaimed – and sold out - Underground Wave series, 4 albums released so far, and counting, there is now Volume 5 with mainly Belgian bands but this time as well with a strong international presence by Kunzsysteem (Netherlands), Analysis (UK), No Unauthorized (France) en Dead Man Industry (USA)

Side 1 contains original 80’s work, previously only released on cassette or obscure and ultra rare 7”s. Side 2 contains new work in the minimal synth tradition with a.o. an exclusive new track by the legendary Vita Noctis.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Victims (7 A Nou)

2. So You (RDP)

3. Gravity Dance (Analysis)

4. J’attends (No Unauthorized)

5. Robot Robot (Nacht und Nebel)

6. Desorientation in Grey (Dead Man Industry)

Side 2

1. Deceived (Schicksal)

2. Defaced Places (Unidentified Man)

3. Galoppin’ Gertie (Breast Implosion)

4. All Nymphs are Volcanic (Man Without World)

5. Hymn (Vita Noctis)

6. Brighter than Light (Kunzsysteem)

Ian William Craig is a trained operatic vocalist who combines his voice with analogue synthesizers, reel-to-reel machines, and faulty tape decks to create sublime cascades of unpredictable decay and beauty. His music engages with the operatic and orchestral, submerging them under a shifting palette of vocal improvisations, analogue tape hiss and billowing clouds of erasure. As well as a talented musician, Craig is an award-winning printmaker. Originally from Edmonton, he began playing live under his own name in 2010 in Vancouver, where he currently works at the University of British Columbia running the printmaking studio for the fine arts department. Though classically trained and grounded in the choral tradition, Craig’s early albums were concentrated predominantly around the piano, with his voice merely a marginal presence. In recent years, however, his practice has come to focus increasingly around his powerful voice, as can again be witnessed on Centres.

Ian's first release for FatCat’s pioneering 130701 imprint (Max Richter, Hauschka, Dustin O’Halloran, Jóhann Jóhannsson, etc) Centres is actually his ninth full-length album, the majority of which were self-released digitally or in limited cassette editions. His last two full lengths (‘A Turn of Breath’, 2014; and ‘Cradle for the Wanting’, 2015) were issued physically on the excellent California label, Recital Program and received glowing press and placements in numerous critics’ end of year lists (including Mojo / NY Times / Rolling Stone). The Guardian marveled how “to be both wildly experimental and fantastically listenable is a skill that precious few people possess, but Craig has it … truly brilliant,” whilst Mojo remarked on "a blissfully disquieting choral suite, moving from the corroded cries of counter-tenor ghosts to a kind of abstract Buckleyesque hearbreak, as if some lovelorn romantic troubadour had been summoned forth from the recording of séances on old shellac 78s."

About Centres:

Fundamentally distressed yet texturally lush, Centres is an immensely deep, rich and rewarding listen. It was recorded in an assortment of studio and other locations across his Vancouver hometown: in concert halls and classrooms; train-yards and live rooms, as well as Craig’s own home. It was created using a mixture of sources - synthesizer, Hammond organ, guitar, accordion, wire recorder, loop station, Craig’s array of re-purposed tape decks and “cassette choir”. The songs were created manipulating tape loops through two or three decks at once to create strange deteriorating delays with different colors. Craig would then circuit-bend the bias to create odd kinds of distortion, or bend the sound back into itself so it feeds back in unpredictable ways.

Continually honing and pushing this process, the album shows a quite brilliant attention to textural detail. Morphing, swirling, scouring, shimmering, it continually expands and contracts around you. Forging a harmonically gorgeous and utterly immersive listening experience, it pulls you from the rousing, slow-build of the opening ‘Contain (Astoria Version)’ through the standout ‘A Single Hope’, with its huge bass and Hammond organ swells, and through shifting cloud-zones of ‘Drifting to Void on All Sides’ or ‘Power Colour Spirit Animal’, the Nico-esque accordion opening of ‘The Nearness’, and back to the cyclical ending of ‘Contain (Cedar Version)’, one of the cleanest and sparest tracks here - pared back to the purity of a single voice and guitar.

Centres is an astounding album that stands with a similarly unique sense of vision and integrity as the likes of William Basinski or Colin Stetson.

With Michael Plaster of SoulWhirlingSomewhere on vocals

Featuring Sam’s delicate acoustic guitar work and a stirring vocal performance from Michael Plaster (and drums from The Dresden Doll’s Brian Viglione), these four songs are interconnected, intimate stories of a broken heart. Bike Shop, Sam’s fifth consecutively-funded Kickstarter project, displays the tenderest side of Blacktape.

Only one of the four songs will be included on Black Tape For A Blue Girl’s August 12th CD. These fleeting moments, their 11th studio album, is 70 minutes of powerful, gorgeously yearning tracks, born from the same place as their classic 90s releases Remnants of a deeper purity and A chaos of desire.

Sam says, “The tracks on the EP are quite different from the ones on the album; they are sparse and sensitive pieces written for Michael’s vocals. They’re up close and personal reflections on places and moments, asking how things fell apart. I wrote ‘Bike shop’ and when Michael got involved I quickly wrote three additional songs to tell more of the story of the character. But these weren’t the direction I was taking the album. I decided to put them together on this EP as a stand-alone piece outside the context of These fleeting

The EP can be pre-ordered now! Not only on vinyl, but can be streamed or download on Bandcamp as well.

www.projekt.com/store/product/pro00321