music album REVIEW:
Ennio Morricone: soundtrack for John Carpenter's 1982 horror-Sci-Fi movie "The Thing" (see under film)
A complete odd man out in this list, as it is a 100% instrumental album, orchestral with bits of old-style electronic music woven in. It was written and produced as a horror film soundtrack (in fact one of my favourite horror movies; see film), but very little of it was actually used in the film. It must have annoyed Morricone, but then again, it's typical for John Carpenter to only use very minimalist thematic material in his films.
Never mind, the full soundtrack reveals a rich dark texture, darker in a way than the film, but helped by knowledge of the film. You can even picture some scenes – even though the relevant music wasn't used for those scenes in the film. The music works on its own too – if you just take it as a kind of dark ambience/semi-classical 'programme music' (the term in classical musicology for music that is meant to evoke images and other extra-musical impressions).
A complete odd man out in this list, as it is a 100% instrumental album, orchestral with bits of old-style electronic music woven in. It was written and produced as a horror film soundtrack (in fact one of my favourite horror movies; see film), but very little of it was actually used in the film. It must have annoyed Morricone, but then again, it's typical for John Carpenter to only use very minimalist thematic material in his films.
Never mind, the full soundtrack reveals a rich dark texture, darker in a way than the film, but helped by knowledge of the film. You can even picture some scenes – even though the relevant music wasn't used for those scenes in the film. The music works on its own too – if you just take it as a kind of dark ambience/semi-classical 'programme music' (the term in classical musicology for music that is meant to evoke images and other extra-musical impressions).
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