John Carpenter to Perform Live in Iceland Next Year
Todd Rigney
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If you find yourself roaming around Iceland next July, then set aside some time to attend the ATP festival in Ásbrú. For the first time ever, legendary filmmaker and composer John Carpenter will perform several of his scores and some new material in concert. Tickets for the event are on sale now, so you’d better start planning your Icelandic vacation as soon as possible.
From the Press Release:
We’re thrilled and delighted to have the legendary composer John Carpenter performing live at our ATP Iceland festival in Ásbrú, former NATO base in Keflavík, on July 1-3, 2016. It will be the first time the acclaimed American director and composer has ever performed his compositions live.
John Carpenter will be performing a musical retrospective of his work, his first solo record of non-soundtrack music Lost Themes, plus brand new compositions. The Horror Master will also be joined on stage by both his son Cody Carpenter and his godson Daniel Davies (both of whom co-recorded Lost Themes), in addition to a full live band and spectacular stage production.
“We are incredibly honoured to present the first ever show by this legendary film-maker and composer. Having had the opportunity to present the maestro Ennio Morricone twice in recent years, it has been a burning ambition of ours to also present John Carpenter, who is both a pioneer and a huge influence on us and so many great musicians and film-makers that we work with. You’d be fucking crazy to miss this,” said ATP’s Barry Hogan.
John Carpenter has been responsible for much of the horror genre’s most striking soundtrack work in movies he’s both directed and scored, such as Dark Star (1974), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), Christine (1983), Starman (1984), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Prince of Darkness (1987), and They Live (1988) to name a few.
The themes that drive them can be stripped to a few coldly repeating notes, take on the electrifying thunder of a rock concert, or submerge themselves into exotic, unholy miasmas. It’s work that instantly floods his fans’ musical memory with imagery of a menacing shape stalking a babysitter, a relentless wall of ghost-filled fog, lightning-fisted kung fu fighters, or a mirror holding the gateway to hell.
Composers before him had used minimalism to create terror, whether it was two piano notes for a killer shark or the stabbing strings of a mother-obsessed psychopath, but it was Halloween’s brilliantly interwoven synth melodies that truly took genre scoring to a new, more sinister level.
In February 2015, John Carpenter released his first solo record of non-soundtrack music, Lost Themes on Sacred Bones Records, to overwhelming critical success. Recorded with son Cody and godson Daniel, John Carpenter proved that not only could he perfectly score his own films – he could also score the movies in your mind. Lost Themes debuted on both the US and UK top 100 charts and garnered extensive and glowing coverage in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Times (UK), Uncut, The Wire, The Los Angeles Times, NPR, Pitchfork, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, Artforum, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, and countless other music, horror, and lifestyle magazines.
Check out the announcement trailer for John Carpenter’s upcoming performance below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu1PEKHNXCU&w=640&h=360]
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