Several years ago, La-La Land released a limited edition of John Harrison’s music for Creepshow (1982).  For fans of 1980s horror films, Creepshow became a late-night cable staple with its starring turns by Leslie Nielsen and Ted Danson being just some of the campy fun of the film.  The score is by John Harrison (Frank Herbert’s Dune, Children of Dune miniseries).  His first film score is by itself a guilty pleasure for fans of the film.

Low-budget horror films in the 1980s tended to follow a path set by Carpenter’s Halloween, using a variety of new synthesizer sounds and instrumental backdrops to create appropriate underscore.  Often the music tended toward keyboard driven solo piano lines with a variety of unusual synth textures or sounds with an ostinato pattern providing rhythmic impetus.  In the film’s opening “Prologue” these things all hold sway with a little wordless choir for good measure.  The material was very appropriate to the film back then, but as with so much electronically reproduced music sounds dated a bit now.  The recording itself bears very well for those who love this type of music.  And fans of the film will no doubt flock to grab up the copies available.  From a musical point of view the sampling is not all that interesting beyond the main thematic music.  “The Lonsesome Death of Jordy Verrill” sounds like random, on-the-spot composition.  It plays well to film, but not necessarily apart from it.  While I enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek humor of including “Camptown Races” in the midst of the segment “Something to Tide You Over” it wears very thin quickly on its own.  So this is recommended only for those who enjoyed the campy film and for those interested in adding to their collection of electronic film music.

La-La Land’s last release of this score was back in 2003.  Then the individual film sequences were edited into single tracks.  For their new expanded release (limited to 3000 copies again), each of these segments has been unpacked to allow for each musical sequence to be accessed individually which is a bonus for fans.  The previous release included music from Tales of the Darkside, but this time we get a variety of music library cues amounting to an additional 30 minutes of material to fill out the CD.  The music by a host of different composers will likely be some extra enticement for those not sure whether they want to replace their previous disc or not (of course, the Tales score is not included this time out).  Well done release of campy 1980s film music.

Day of the Dead

JOHN HARRISON

La-La Land Records 1277
Disc One: 23 Tracks – 63:45
Disc Two: 6 Tracks – 39:41

Limited edition of 3000 copies.

Long before the present zombie media frenzy, George Romero was instilling genre tropes for film zombies from his classic Night of the Living Dead (1968) through a host of subsequent zombie films that continued ten years later with Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985).  The former moved from the countryside to the urban setting of a mall where a group of people had to try and fight off this zombie menace.  The latter is a bit more apocalyptic in that the world is now populated by zombies and they begin to invade a military bunker of military and scientific personnel.  Once the setup is complete the gorefest begins with some of the grossest sequences scene on film up to that period.  The score was by John Harrison, his second, who helmed the music for Creepshow and would go on to provide music for Tales from the Darkside.  Harrison’s background was in directing the then new genre of rock videos and also served as an assistant director for Romero.  The independent soundtrack label La-La Land Records is releasing this new limited edition of the score along with the original album which should be a boon for fans of 1980s horror film music.

For Day of the Dead, Harrison used a variety of electronic keyboards and drum systems to create the backdrop for the score.  Additional percussion and guitar material helps provide some additional musical sound.  The score itself is smack in the middle of many electronic backdrops.  The difference here is that unlike the more electronic-sounding design element scores heard in John Carpenter films, Harrison’s score tends to provide a bit warmer musical sounds with interesting lyrical ideas.  The Fender Rhodes sounds also essentially date the score and lend it its occasional pop-like musical vibe in between the horror music gestures.  In some respects, the music tends to take an often lighter approach to scoring to perhaps lessen the gruesomeness on screen and comment on the more cartoonish aspects of the story overall.  The instruments used here tend to be run through their paces exploring a variety of the sound samples available.  Synth strings tend to have an often warped-like flutter to help create a good unsettling effect.  Percussion, electronic and acoustic, is not looped or sequenced much the way one might hear today; though small cells of material may be repeated in short succession tending to feel more dramatic.  The music sometimes feels rather improvisatory exploring different sounds for intended screen effects.  And yet, can also have melodic material with engaging harmonic support.  A good example of these approaches can be heard in the dual track “John Warns Sarah/People Got Different Ideas.”  These flashes of interesting music stand alongside many fairly classic 1980s musical gestures for scores like this.

La-La Land presents the full film score on the first disc in good sound.  The music works surprisingly well here on its own belying its connection to a horror film for most of its playing time.  The second disc presents the original soundtrack album.  This includes a 19-minute suite  (side 1!) and some additional score material of smaller suites of material arranged by the composer.  There are also some flashbacks to 1980s pop music in the remaining material which  includes a performance of “The Dead Walk” by Modern Man, a Pittsburgh group; and two additional songs featuring some of Harrison’s music performed by Sputzy Sparacino and Delilah of Modern Man.  The release contains a great accompanying booklet outlining each track plot information and a fine essay on the film and score.  Certainly, Day of the Dead will be of interest to fans of 1980s electronic and synth-based scores and it provides an interesting contrast exhibiting how versatile this medium could, and would, become for low-budget films and beyond.