After scoring most of his lexicon the iconic horror filmmaker John Carpenter has transcended his musical talent into his 2nd album of “Lost Themes” and is finally taking the tunes on tour. Proving he is one our generations true auteurs.
The crowd at the Orpheum Theater was on the brink of the mouth of madness waiting for the show to begin. From the moment he opened with the first keyboard note of the “Escape From New York Theme” the Halloween director gave the crowd nothing but treats. Carpenter was front and center on a keyboard with his son on his right side playing additional keyboards, a lead guitarist was to his left and a full 3 piece rhythm section backed them up. The show was a nice mixture of film scores and songs from the two “Lost Themes” albums. He hit all the film favorites: Big Trouble in Little China, They Live, The Fog, Assault in Precinct 13, In The Mouth of Madness, Halloween, Prince of Darkness, Christine, all of them accompanied with clips from the films. He even covered Oscar winning composer Ennio Maricone’s opening title them from The Thing.
The true treat was the new “Lost Themes” material. With the film scores they are all designed to enhance the film. The Lost Themes stuff is released as music and the tracks make better use of the rest of the instruments and the advantage of being modern and not having the dated sounds of the previous decades they were composed in. Not to say that they don’t instantly sound like a John Carpenter score, his style is unique and prevalent with every note just like his films are with every shot and edit.
One of the tracks he played early in the evening off the first Lost Themes album was “Vortex.” The title of the track, as well as the auditory journey it takes you on echo within me as the best way to describe hearing the Lost Themes tracks. Carpenter calls the albums Lost Themes, which implies they belong to a film that was never made and when you hear these tracks they send your brain into a spiral searching for the lost film the songs belong to. On one hand I’m looking forward to Lost Themes 3, and on the other I hope he gets to make the movies so there is no longer a need for a Lost Theme ever again.
Los Angeles, US