JOHN CARPENTER AND ALAN HOWARTH PRINCE OF DARKNESS LP VINYL NEW 33RPM
A1 Opening Titles 4:14
A2 Team Assembly 4:33
A3 Darkness Begins 2:54
A4 A Message From The Future 5:30
A5 Hell Breaks Loose 4:53
B1 Mirror Image 6:46
B2 The Devil Awakens 8:57
B3 Through The Mirror 5:50
A note from the director:
"Prince Of Darkness" is my tenth film as director-twelfth if you count the TV movie-and my eigth as composer/performer. My collaboration with Alan Howarth has happily continued and deepened since our first meeting on "Escape From New York". I feel Alan and I reached a new level of complexity on our score for "Big Trouble In Little China"(1986), and the musical soundtrack from "Prince Of Darkness", which you hold in your hands, is another offering in what I call "midi-depth".
The "midi" computer function allows Alan to hook up several synthesizers simultaneously played from one keyboard. In the past we would spend considerable time and use up many tracks layering our musical lines. Now all the synthesizers in the studio can be played at the same time, on one track. The orchestral/electronic capabiliies suddenly become enormous.
"Prince Of Darkness" concerns the awakening of the Devil and his attempts to bring his father, Anti-God, back from the Darkside into our world. I suppose it is essentially a good old-fashioned horror film with science-fiction overtones. There are some notations about the weird world of quantum physics, but they're really only trimmings. The viewer needn't try to figure out what the collapse of classical reality is all about-I'll save observer-created reality, nonlocality and acusality for another picture.
I wanted the soundtrack to be ominous. Certainly-but light-an electronic orchestra moving the viewer gently through the film until such time as... I realize now that the use of choral voices is resonant of the excellent score Jack Nitzsce composed for my picture "Starman"-but this was unintentional. I simply recalled my youth and heavenly choirs suddenly bursting forth in various Biblical epics. So-why not a heavenly choir whenever the Prince appears on the scene?
Since it's quite obvious to science-fiction fans that "Prince Of Darkness" is an homage to Nigel Kneale's "Quatermass" films, it would be appropriate to state that one of my favourite composers and primary influences is James Bernard. Although his best known score is probably "Horror Of Dracula", I have loved all Hammer work through the fifties and sixties.
Finally, I should be happy if the listener will remember that the music is intended to support the visual image, and that the enjoyment of the music itself is a secondary result.