John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter Lost Themes IV: Noir Vinyl LP Tan & Black Marble Colour 2024

Tracklist:

1. My Name Is Death
2. Machine Fear
3. Last Rites
4. The Burning Door
5. He Walks By Night
6. Beyond the Gallows
7. Kiss the Blood Off My Fingers
8. Guillotine
9. The Demon's Shadow
10. Shadows Have a Thousand Eyes

Since the first 'Lost Themes', John has referred to these compositions as 'soundtracks for the movies in your mind.' On the fourth installment in the series, those movies are noirs. Like the film genre they were influenced by, what makes these songs 'noirish' is sometimes slippery and hard to define, and not merely reducible to a collection of tropes. The scores for the great American noir pictures were largely orchestral, while the Carpenters and Davies work off a sturdy synth-and-guitar backbone. The noir quality, then, is something you understand instinctively when you hear it, as in connected in an emotional way.