…includes 25 never-before-released cues.
When Halloween Kills appeared in the midst of John Carpenter‘s renaissance in the 2010s and 2020s, it was clear that the creative juices between him, his son Cody Carpenter, and godson Daniel Davies were in full flow. As with their soundtrack to Halloween [2018], which kicked off a new trilogy of films in the venerable horror movie franchise, the music for the second installment is classic Carpenter, albeit fuller and richer-sounding than it was on 1978’s original Halloween.
Carpenter and his team find even more ways to reinterpret Halloween’s classic theme, whether piling mountains of synths on it (“Halloween Kills Main Title”), setting it to a four-on-the-floor beat (“Halloween Kills End Titles”), and…
Category: original soundtrack
Gazelle Twin has become a prolific scorer in the past few years; her latest project is written for the Welsh procedural drama Mudtown (Ar y Ffin). Viewing the trailer, one can tell that there’s a great deal of tension in the show; suffice it to say that the producers hired the right person for the job.
The title track, which we assume is played over the opening credits, is awash in bell-toned percussion, innocent at first, then savaged by a deep electronic drone. One can already sense the ways in which the plot may turn. Many of the pieces here are similarly short, but contain some segment of inner transition, refusing to be incidental music.
“Take the Hit” is the first piece to launch right into the listener. The drums are hard and harsh, the implication that something mean is…
Nine Inch Nails returns with over 70 minutes of new music for the motion picture Tron: Ares, the first soundtrack / score work from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that will live under the Nine Inch Nails moniker; consisting of all original music, complete at 24 tracks.
Reznor and Ross bring their Grammy and Oscar-winning sonic vision to the Grid, crafting a soundtrack that hums with menace, melancholy, and momentum. More than an album, its architecture in sound: pulsating synths, distorted textures, and haunting melodies that rewire the Tron universe from the inside out. It is the collision of analog soul and digital dread – a score that doesn’t just accompany the film, it possesses it. This release marks the first official film…
Texas-based duo Balmorhea (Rob Lowe and Michael A. Muller) present their latest Deutsche Grammophon album – the original soundtrack they composed and recorded for The Trap, written and directed by actress Lena Headey (Game of Thrones). Based on Headey’s BAFTA-nominated short of the same name, and starring Michelle Fairley and James Nelson-Joyce, The Trap was premiered at the Austin Film Festival in October 2023.
The Trap is a psychological drama about a woman whose solitary life is disturbed by her meeting with a troubled young man. Balmorhea’s evocative score enhances the film’s sense of isolation, mystery and unease. “The music is very honest and intimate; gravitating mostly around piano and vibraphone with atmospheric guitars…
…expanded release includes two extra tracks (‘Line Open’ and ‘Landscape’) released on a CD single promoting the soundtrack more than 30 years ago, but were not included on the original soundtrack album.
1492: Conquest of Paradise was the Greek musician’s second time scoring music for a Ridley Scott film, the pair having worked so effectively on 1982’s Blade Runner. The film celebrated the 500th anniversary commemoration of Columbus’ voyage to the New World.
The album, which won Vangelis an Echo Award for International Artist of the Year and an RTL Golden Lion Award for the Best Title Theme for a TV Film or Series in 1996, was nominated for Best Original Score – Motion Picture at the 50th…
The album features the film’s original songs by the post-punk band Idles, as well as the movie’s original score composed by Rob Simonsen (Deadpool & Wolverine, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, The Way Back, It Ends with Us, The Age of Adaline, (500) Days of Summer, Nerve, Foxcatcher) and performed by Idles. The soundtrack will released digitally by Pertoza/Partisan Records. As previously reported, a first song (Rabbit Run) has already been released as a digital single last month.
Aronofsky enlisted Idles to capture the energy of the 1990s New York punk scene that colors Caught Stealing. “I built Caught Stealing to be a roller coaster of fun and wanted to supercharge the film by main lining a punk sensibility,” the director said in a press statement.
…After five expanded scores to James Bond films in the last 18 months, La-La Land’s aim is steady as ever with a sixth: Michael Kamen’s score to 1989’s Licence to Kill, the second and final film featuring Timothy Dalton as Ian Fleming’s legendary literary spy. Dalton’s aim was to portray Bond more like the original books, with less of the fantastical gadgets and occasionally campy humor of previous installments. And Licence to Kill remains one of the series’ grittiest entries, finding 007 resigning from MI6 and enacting a personal mission of revenge after a drug lord maims his longtime CIA friend and associate Felix Leiter. (The character, who suffered a similar fate in Fleming’s Live and Let Die novel, appeared in several of the films and played bydifferent…
…The Hunt for Red October, the 1984 novel that introduced the quick-thinking CIA analyst, was adapted into a film in 1990 that starred Alec Baldwin as Ryan, working to avoid a confrontation between the U.S. Navy and a rogue Soviet submarine captain portrayed by Sean Connery. One of the highest-grossing films of the year, Red October featured a stirring score by Basil Poledouris (Conan the Barbarian, RoboCop), combining orchestra, chorus and electronics in full measure. Though previously generously expanded by Intrada in 2013, that presentation was sourced from backup masters on analog tape. For this 35th anniversary release, access was granted to the original scoring masters for a new mix, which also revealed a further 16 alternate takes…
…With an expanded running time almost 30 minutes longer than the original 2002 soundtrack release, this deluxe presentation of ‘The Sum of All Fears’ features previously unreleased score cues as well as bonus tracks and songs – all of it remastered by Doug Schwartz.
After two further Jack Ryan films in the ’90s, both starring Harrison Ford, the series was rebooted to feature a younger (but contemporary) version of the character, this time played by Ben Affleck in a loose adaptation of Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears.
This 2002 film was one of the last major action pictures scored by Jerry Goldsmith, who brings his usual dazzling patriotic flair to the proceedings (along with vocal interpretations of his themes on the Yolanda Adams-sung…
…The sixth Bond film was John Barry’s fifth score for the series, but the first (and only) performance by Australian model George Lazenby, making his acting debut as Ian Fleming’s literary secret agent. One of the more emotional stories in the series, OHMSS pitted Bond against the villainous Blofeld (played this time by Telly Savalas) and had 007 enter a star-crossed romance with a mysterious countess (Diana Rigg).
Barry’s score was anchored by a new, riveting instrumental title theme that would become part of the Bond canon, and also featured the stirring “We Have All the Time in the World,” a love theme written with lyricist Hal David that offered one of the last vocal performances by legendary jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong.
Northern Irish duo Bicep were on a trip to Greenland, and when the pair’s Andy Ferguson visited the country’s famous Russell Glacier, he says he found it to be “like an orchestra of noise. The squeals and crashes that the ice makes were truly otherworldly.”
While many of us will never get the chance to hear these sounds in person, this glacier and other voices of the Arctic, human and otherwise, are incorporated into the lauded electronic duo’s new collaborative project Takkuuk.
Taking its name from the Inuktitut word meaning to look closely, Takkuuk is an audiovisual installation from Bicep (Ferguson and Matt McBriar) visual artist Zak Norman and filmmaker Charlie Miller that delves into the lives, communities…
Lee Mendelson Film Productions is continuing its series unveiling never-before-released soundtracks to classic Peanuts specials.
This 50th anniversary edition premieres Vince Guaraldi’s score to You’re a Good Sport, Charlie Brown; bonus tracks include alternate and unused cues and rare tracks from the 1974 short educational film Bicycles Are Beautiful. Guaraldi’s trio for these recordings is rounded out by Mark Rosengarden and Seward McClain.
…Following the passing of producer Lee Mendelson in December 2019, his sons Jason and Sean Mendelson undertook an extensive search of archival materials in hopes of locating original music score recordings from the Peanuts television specials. During the COVID-19…
…Intrada revisits one of the most notable reissues of their catalogue as a tribute to the label’s 40th anniversary and the passing of its founder Douglass Fake last year, with a fresh new revisiting of Jerry Goldsmith’s score to First Blood.
One of his most respected scores of the ’80s, First Blood adapted David Morrell’s novel about John Rambo, a Vietnam veteran whose mistreatment by law enforcement in a small Washington town unlocks his capabilities as a ruthless Green Beret. Following a trio of Rocky films that elevated him as writer and star (and, for the latter two, director), First Blood offered Sylvester Stallone a second iconic character and franchise – one he reprised in four sequels between 1985 and 2019.
Goldsmith’s bold work was an early release as…
Fans know that M83’s soundtracks are as vital to Anthony Gonzalez’s body of work as his own albums. He’s brought his mastery of awe-struck atmospheres to sci-fi (Oblivion), dramas (You and the Night), and thrillers (Knife + Heart); with Necessary Escape: Dakar Chronicles, he turns his focus to sports documentaries. Jalil Lespert’s record of the Dakar Car Rally — a punishing 14-day trek across desert terrain widely thought to be the toughest race in motorsports — depicts sweeping landscapes and physical and psychological extremes reflected in the score’s balance of endurance and exhilaration.
“Strike Machine,” a percolating piece that shifts from driving to hypnotic, offers both. Compared to M83’s previous album, the elaborate…
How else could we preface this? Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, John Williams’ acclaimed score to Steven Spielberg’s JAWS is rising up from the depths for its 50th anniversary. And this time, the bites are big. Williams’ longtime archivist Mike Matessino has remixed the original film score for a new release available digitally. These original tracks heard in the film remained unreleased until the early 2000s, but have never been heard with such clarity and precision.
“What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine… an eating machine.” That line of dialogue could just as easily describe Spielberg’s film as its fearsome leviathan. Peter Benchley’s novel about a great white shark wreaking havoc on…
Director Alex Ross Perry’s film Pavements is currently screening in select theaters – with more to come – and has been met with confusion, confoundment, and ultimately high praise from critics, including features and reviews in the New York Times, New Yorker, and Los Angeles Times.
On May 30th, Matador will release the Pavements soundtrack album digitally with a physical edition to follow at a later date. Compiled by Pavements producer/editor Robert Greene and Pavement, the soundtrack ropes together disparate elements of Perry’s film – dialogue snippets, scenes from the fake Oscar-bait biopic Range Life, and cast recordings from the Slanted! Enchanted! jukebox musical as well as live and rehearsal tapes from the band’s 2022 reunion tour.
Rock Action Records release the official soundtrack album for the BBC drama The Bombing of Pan Am 103. The album features selections of the show’s original music composed by the Scottish post-rock band Mogwai (Black Bird, The Returned, ZeroZeroZero, Kin, Before the Flood).
The Bombing of Pan Am 103 is created by Jonathan Lee, directed by Michael Keillor and stars Connor Swindells, Patrick J. Adams, Merritt Wever, Eddie Marsan, Peter Mullan, Tony Curran, Kevin McKidd and Nicholas Gleaves. The 6-parter is based on the true story of the bombing of a passenger flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988 and the quest to bring its perpetrators to justice.
Mogwai recorded the original soundtrack to the series with long-time collaborator…
…Cheaper Than Cheep was recorded on June 21, 1974 at a rehearsal studio on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, where Zappa was joined by a Mothers of Invention line-up including Chester Thompson (drums), George Duke (keyboards, vocals), Jeff Simmons (guitar, vocals), Napoleon Murphy Brock (tenor sax, flute, vocals), Ruth Underwood (percussion), and Tom Fowler (bass). Zappa enlisted a film crew with multiple cameras to capture the intimate performance, while Wally Heider’s mobile truck outside handled the audio with Zappa associate Kerry McNabb engineering. The title is derived from Zappa’s crack at the beginning of the show that it was “cheaper than cheap” – a nod to the fact that he self-funded the concert on a tight budget. Ever the taskmaster,…
…this deluxe re-issue showcases the Score Presentation, as written for the film by the composers, across CD1 and 2. Disc 3 features The Gladiator Sketchbook, showcasing exclusive, never before released sketches from Hans Zimmer’s archives, as well as Additional Music tracks, including alternate cues and more.
…A modern take on sword-and-sandal epics released in 2000, Gladiator told the story of Maximus Decimus Meridius, a dedicated Roman general whose world is turned upside down by the murder of emperor Marcus Aurelius at the hands of his son, who proceeds to murder Maximus’ family and cast him into slavery. The warrior plots his revenge while rising through the ranks of the empire’s greatest fighters. Directed with…