The Thing (1982 Original Soundtrack)

Product Information

Waxwork Records is thrilled to present the deluxe film score reissue to 1982’s sci-fi horror classic, John Carpenter's THE THING. Composed by the legendary Ennio Morricone, the score to THE THING is a landmark musical composition that is cold, dark, minimal, and effective.

It gives a nice and clean yet smooth presentation and gets across the right feel the music wants to convey for the most part. The first features the original score by Ennio Morricone— best known for spaghetti westerns like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and his Oscar-winning music for The Hateful Eight (which included music he’d originally written for The Thing) — and the second, Lost Cues: The Thing, contains newly rerecorded music Carpenter himself wrote for the film. Both LPs are due out May 5th. Quartet Records, Geffen Records and Universal Music Special Markets present the long-awaited remastered reissue of Ennio Morricone’s iconic score for the no-less-iconic John Carpenter sci-fi/horror film THE THING (1982). Ennio Morricone composed the magnificent score for my movie The Thing,” Carpenter said in a statement. “Because we weren’t finished editing the movie, Ennio had to score without seeing a complete picture. When we put everything together, there were gaps dramatically where I would have wanted music. So I went off and scored a couple of simple pieces that filled in.” John Carpenter’s films are of course known for their incredible scores, often performed by Carpenter himself, but for The Thing, Ennio Morricone handled the music. With his landmark score, Morricone – who recently won the Oscar for The Hateful Eight (which, funny enough, used bits of The Thing score) – pitch-perfectly captured the cold, isolated atmosphere of the story.Waxwork Records and Sacred Bones Records are thrilled to present JOHN CARPENTER’S LOST CUES: THE THING. Composed and performed by director John Carpenter and including performances by Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies, LOST CUES: THE THING features unreleased musical cues from the1982 alien-horror masterpiece, THE THING. Midway through, Morricone’s themes strike a balance between acoustic, human sounds and cold electronics. The strings of “Solitude” oscillate between anxious and vertiginous. Keys twinkle like melting icicles on the electronic-tinged “Eternity,” soon joined by a church organ line that seems to be perpetually in descent, ratcheting up the tension and creating a sense of the inevitable. A meandering synth piece, “Sterilization,” shows Morricone not altogether comfortable mixing these two distinct palettes together. Although Carpenter himself (in collaboration with Alan Howarth) had scored his five previous films, he turned to the Italian maestro to compose the original score for The Thing since it was his first film with a big studio budget. Due to scheduling conflicts, Morricone composed the music after viewing the film before it was even complete. He recorded the synthesizer parts in Rome and the large orchestra in Los Angeles. Ultimately, more than half the score was not used in the film, and some parts were replaced by electronic music newly composed by Carpenter and Howarth. However, Morricone’s work—one of his most imaginative, claustrophobic and paranoid scores—has developed a cult following. It is one of the scores most appreciated by the composer’s fans, and also by Carpenter fans. Clues lead them into the world of monsters and ultimately down the rabbit hole to Army officer Lee Shaw (played by Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell), taking place in the 1950s and half a century later where Monarch is threatened by what Shaw knows.

When editing down The Thing, Carpenter felt that the film could benefit by the inclusion of additional music to fill in gaps. This additional music would sonically tie the overall film together. Taking the initiative, Carpenter performed and recorded multiple synth driven cues in his renowned scoring style and edited them into the film. He went on to make several different cues in many different styles. “In the end, he chose just one single piece of music,” Morricone said. “Now one of the pieces he didn’t use is in The Hateful Eight.” Quartet Records, Geffen Records and Universal Music Special Markets present the long-awaited remastered reissue of Ennio Morricone's iconic score for the no-less-iconic John Carpenter sci-fi/horror film The Thing (1982).

The surprising talent of The Wonders was just as evident live as it is on this, the band's only record. As last minute additions to the Play-Tone Galaxy of Stars, The Wonders thrilled crowds throughout the mid-west with a set of songs that grew by, literally, public demand. With the then state-of- the-art Clavius K-135 Portable Recording system (with Quad Yoshikawa Microphones and a Floating Element Carbonite Tape) two other songs by The Wonders were recorded live during an afternoon show at the Illinois State Fair in late July 1964. Along with other records from the period and from the Play-Tone Stable of Artists, they have been digitally re-mixed, re-mastered and augmented especially for the vinyl you now hold. Although Carpenter himself (in collaboration with Alan Howarth) had scored his five previous films, he turned to the Italian maestro to compose the original score for THE THING since it was his first film with a big studio budget. Two different versions were initially available, the “Snow Variant” and “Deluxe Ice Edition,” but the latter has already sold out. So you better act fast on this one.