There's been feverish anticipation building around the C-Blast office for months, waiting for Lost Themes. The first ever "solo" album from John Carpenter outside of his legendary film score output (and his one-off band The Coupe De Villes with Tommy Lee Wallace and Nick Castle), Lost Themes comes at the height of a recent resurgence of interest in 80's era synthesizer music and classic horror movie scores, and John Carpenter's synth-drenched soundtracks in particular. A number of amazing reissues have surfaced lately from the likes of Mondo and Death Waltz, high-quality vinyl reissues of Carpenter's iconic music for classic films like Escape From New York, Halloween, Prince Of Darkness and The Fog, which have allowed a whole new audience to discover anew what many of us that have been worshipping at the altar of Carpenter since the VHS boom have known all along: this guys is one of the preeminent film and music stylists of the late 20th century. He's more revered now than ever, now that his stately nightmare visuals and pioneering electronic scores have so heavily influenced various aspects of our culture since he first appeared in the 1970s.
So when word came out that Carpenter would be releasing his first ever collection of non-filmic music, I could hardly wait. While his more recent film work hasn't made much of an impression on me, I had a lot of faith in this project, especially after hearing some of the tracks that came out in advance of the album's release. And when it finally landed in my hands and slipped onto the turntable, I couldn't have been more stoked on how good this album turned out to be. It's not the minimal synthesizer music of his early works like some might have expected, but rather a dark and bombastic sound, well produced and heavy on the guitars. Lost Themes was created with his son Cody (who produces his own brand of progressive rock with the band Ludrium ) and godson Daniel Davies (of stoner rockers Year Long Disaster), but from the opening notes this is immediately recognizable as a John Carpenter recording. Once that moody piano figure enters at the beginning of "Vortex" and the music gives way to those familiar synth arpeggios, there's no question as to who you're listening to. It's lush stuff, with lots of distorted guitar chords and pulsating beats that are definitely reminiscent of the rock-tinged sound of his later 80s work for films like Prince Of Darkness, Big Trouble In Little China and They Live. Still dark and menacing, though, with that signature ability to create a mood of tension that slowly and inexorably builds across the piece of music. These nine songs teem with tension, and the more expansive nature of a full album allows his pulsating electronics and pounding rhythms to develop more extensively than they might on a film score. Every track is a carefully crafted exercise in mood and menace, from the eerie piano melody that cascades across the propulsive gothic prog of "Obsidian", as sinister organs twine around fuzz-burnt guitar, a track that has some surprising echoes of Italian prog rockers Goblin, to the heavy metal guitars that thunder across "Fallen", and the pulsating rhythms transform "Domain" into a killer piece of futuristic dance floor malevolence, complete with one of the most pulse-pounding motorik grooves I've heard in ages. There's actually quite a bit on Lost Themes that reminds me of Goblin, but Carpenter and crew incorporate a larger palette of sounds, from orchestral strings that spread like shadows beneath the propulsive tempos, to gleaming electronic glitchery that gives this a much sleeker, blacker sound.
It's hard to not to get caught up in a heavy feeling of nostalgia when you're listening to this, but I was genuinely surprised how little Lost Themes sounded like any specific classic Carpenter score; if you listen to a lot of film music, you'll begin to notice that a lot of composers tend to recycle certain themes and ideas. But Carpenter largely avoids that with this new music, and any concerns that the album was going to be made up of cast-off material from older scores disappear pretty quickly once his pounding synth-driven darkness sweeps over you. The album deftly balances vintage tones with modern technique and texture, and most importantly, all of this stuff flows together superbly. Can't imagine anyone else surpassing this as the dark synth album of the year, a stunning, wholly cohesive album from the master; anyone into the likes of Carpenterian disciples like Zombi, Umberto, Antoni Maiovvi, Majeure and the like should make their way to this album pronto. Comes in a striking gatefold sleeve bearing Carpenter's visage cloaked in darkness, and includes a printed insert with liner notes by soundtrack scholar Daniel Schweiger; the vinyl version also comes with a digital download.