Music
Happy 81st Birthday To Composer John Williams
Today marks the 81st birthday of composer John Williams. This is the man who brought us one of the most infamous horror scores when he composed Jaws in 1975. Since that day, people are still afraid to get in the water (myself included). He also composed the 1979 Dracula, which starred Frank Langella as Dracula, Laurence Olivier as Van Helsing and Halloween‘s Donald Pleasence as Dr. Jack Seward. There was also his work on Brian De Palma’s The Fury (1978), which featured Kirk Douglas and John Cassavetes (Rosemary’s Baby).
But it’s not only for these films that Williams is so well known and accomplished. He is also responsible for fantastic scores to such films as the Indiana Jones series, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Schindler’s List, Star Wars, and more.
And so with fond memories for the music of each of these films, I wish John Williams a very happy birthday and thank him for all he has brought us!
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It’s a new day, and you’ve got new John Carpenter to listen to. John Carpenter, Daniel Davies and Cody Carpenter have released the new track He Walks By Night this morning, the second single off their upcoming album Lost Themes IV: Noir, out May 3 on Sacred Bones Records.
Lost Themes IV: Noir is the latest installment in a series that sees Carpenter releasing new music for John Carpenter movies that don’t actually exist. The first Lost Themes was released in 2015, followed by Lost Themes II in 2016 and Lost Themes III: Alive After Death in 2021.
Sacred Bones previews, “It’s been a decade since John Carpenter recorded the material that would become Lost Themes, his debut album of non-film music and the opening salvo in one of Hollywood’s great second acts. Those vibrant, synth-driven songs, made in collaboration with his son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies, kickstarted a musical renaissance for the pioneering composer and director. With Lost Themes IV: Noir, they’ve struck gold again, this time mining the rich history of the film noir genre for inspiration.
“Since the first Lost Themes, John has referred to these compositions as “soundtracks for the movies in your mind.” On the fourth installment in the series, those movies are noirs. Like the film genre they were influenced by, what makes these songs “noirish” is sometimes slippery and hard to define, and not merely reducible to a collection of tropes. The scores for the great American noir pictures were largely orchestral, while the Carpenters and Davies work off a sturdy synth-and-guitar backbone.
“The trio’s free-flowing chemistry means Lost Themes IV: Noir runs like a well-oiled machine—the 1951 Jaguar XK120 Roadster from Kiss Me Deadly, perhaps, or the 1958 Plymouth Fury from John’s own Christine. It’s a chemistry that’s helped power one of the most productive stretches of John’s creative life, and Noir proves that it’s nowhere near done yielding brilliant results.”
You can pre-save Lost Themes IV: Noir right now! And listen to the new track below…
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