My First Horror Score Ever

You may have noticed that my posts have dropped off...*ahem*...slightly...in recent months. Well, I've got a good reason this time, I swear. There's this project I've been working on since about mid-April and it was finally unveiled this past Wednesday. I am very pleased and tremendously excited about the results.

I've been doing something I've dreamed of doing for a very, very long time: I've been composing and recording a horror score.

You might recall a few posts back I featured a piece of mine called "Phantom Satellite". It was a little synthesizer-based composition in the creepy, ambient vein based on a story concept I've been kicking around for a while. Well, to my surprise and joy, that piece was pretty well received. The MP3 got a lot of plays and there were some really nice comments. From those comments emerged a very interesting conversation between myself, bean and Pumpkinrot. The topic was the possibility of creating music for Mr. Rot's splendid 2008 Halloween video, The Hollowmen (this link will take you to his original version of the video with amazing music from Larry Fessenden's The Last Winter).

After putting on dry pants, I pretty much immediately went to work. The last couple of months have been spent watching the video over and over and over and over and over again, taking notes and scratching out little themes and choosing just the right sounds and...oh, by the way: learning how to use the equipment needed to actually record the thing. That's mostly why it took so long. I didn't have a clue really what the hell I was doing with the software and equipment I was trying to use.

But, MAN, did I ever have a good time doing this! It was so much fun I didn't notice the time passing. The technical challenges along the way seemed like nothing. It was a total blast living out my little fantasy of being like John Carpenter, Alan Howarth, Elliot Goldenthal, Ennio Morricone and all the countless other film composers I've worshipped over the years. This little, four-minute video represents my first baby steps in the shadow of these god-like figures. What great, great fun.

So, now that I've explained my absence, I offer you the results of my little sabbatical:

The Hollowmen: Burning Smile Remix

I want to thank my wife for her incredibly helpful input during the creation of this piece. She really helped me bring balance to the overall structure and gave me some much needed perspective when I got too immersed to pick a direction.

Thank you to my very good friend, the incredibly talented Dan Jenkins for contributing all the vocals, the acoustic guitar and for helping to shape the overall composition. Dan and I have been collaborating musically for over a decade and this was just another example of why I love making music with him.

Thank you to bean for her words of encouragement and for the "lyrics". The whispering voices you hear are actually speaking words that she wrote for The Hollowmen pictorial on Pumpkinrot's main site. I thought they were perfect for the piece and outright ganked them because they're awesome.

Lastly, thank you to Pumpkinrot for letting me be a part of what he does, which is to make awesomely scary shit for no reason other than the sheer love of doing it, which is what it's all about and what makes his stuff so special. He rules. I hope we can do this again very soon.