Composed by John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, and Daniel Davies, the Halloween 2018 soundtrack is being released on October 19, and Sacred Bones bring us a preview of the new soundtrack this morning. It comes in the form of an entire track, “Halloween Triumphant.”
Both classically iconic and freshly new, the track is a pretty good representation of the ’18 score as a whole, which remixes classic tunes in a new way that’ll have you smiling ear to ear.
Why wait until Friday? Dig in right now!
Sacred Bones Records has four different versions available for pre-order:
- Limited “Art Edition” – Clear with Orange Inset Color Vinyl LP – $26
- Limited Edition Orange Vinyl LP – $22
- Standard Edition Black Vinyl LP – $19
- Jewel Case CD – $14
Exclusively, Waxwork Records is offering a special variant:
- Mask White, Jumpsuit Blue, and Blood Red Swirl Vinyl LP – $25
There are also a handful of other versions that include:
- Red and Black Splatter “Art Edition” – John Carpenter Tour
- “Pumpkin Orange” Vinyl – US Indie Shops
- “Bloody Knife” Vinyl – UK Indie Shops
- Orange and White Starburst Vinyl – Newbury Comics
- “Dirty Bloody Mask” Vinyl – FYE
- Orange and Black Starburst Vinyl – Rough Trade
- Half Black/Half Orange Vinyl – Rocket (Australia) Exclusive
- “Bloody Pumpkin” Vinyl – Books-a-Million
John Carpenter composed the score with Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. The new soundtrack pays homage to the classic Halloween score that Carpenter composed and recorded in 1978, when he forever changed the course of horror cinema and synthesizer music with his low-budget masterpiece. Several new versions of the iconic main theme serve as the pulse of Green’s film, its familiar 5/4 refrain stabbing through the soundtrack like the Shape’s knife. The rest of the soundtrack is just as enthralling, incorporating everything from atmospheric synth whooshes to eerie piano-driven pieces to skittering electronic percussion.
While the new score was made with a few more resources than Carpenter’s famously shoestring original, its musical spirit was preserved.
“We wanted to honor the original Halloween soundtrack in terms of the sounds we used,” Davies explained. “We used a lot of the Dave Smith OB-6, bowed guitar, Roland Juno, Korg, Roli, Moog, Roland System 1, Roland System 8, different guitar pedals, mellotron, and piano.”
Unlike the Lost Themes albums, where the composers wrote the soundtracks for imaginary movies, Halloween saw the Carpenters and Davies collaborating on music set to images for the first time. Though it marked a significant change from their previous creative process, the trio thrived under the constraints and tight deadlines that film scoring work demands.
“Being limited by the length of time in scoring the sequence, we focused on the director’s tempo, timing, and vision,” Davies said. “He would tell us what he had in mind, how long the cue should be, what emotion he wanted, and we would take it from there. It’s only the three of us, there is no elaborate system. We wrote, performed, and orchestrated everything.”
“It was great,” Carpenter said of the experience. “It was transforming. It was not a movie I directed, so I had a lot of freedom in creating the score and getting into the director’s head. I was proud to serve David Gordon Green’s vision.”
