James Chapman envisions Welcome to the Tudor Gate as a horror-fantasy soundtrack, a score he wrote for a half-remembered film, then misplaced for over a decade. Recorded in 2014, it evokes the tone of classic ’60s and ’70s maestros like Dario Argento and John Carpenter, yet rests easily within the wintry synth-pop oeuvre he’s created under the name Maps.
It’s a foreboding follow-up to Counter Melodies, Chapman’s overtly dance-inspired 2023 album, yet its overriding sense of menace is fused with electricity and action rather than outright doom. In other words, it sounds like a Maps record, albeit one made for the witching hour. 40 minutes in length, Tudor Gate is presented in eight chapters, the first of which plays like…