'The Fog' And 'Escape From New York' Scores Are Getting New Vinyl Soundtracks From Waxwork Records

Somehow, in the digital age where music is so easily accessible in the palm of our hand, there are great new vinyl albums getting released all the time – especially for movie soundtracks. This week is no exception, as two of John Carpenter's classic movies are about to get a fresh set of vinyl soundtracks from Waxwork Records. The Fog is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a new expanded and complete vinyl soundtrack release of the score composed by Carpenter himself, and Escape From New York is getting one too, featuring Carpenter's work with composer Alan Howarth. Check them both out below.

Here's what Waxwork Records says about The Fog score in their official press release:

The music to The Fog by John Carpenter is a synth driven, minimalist score. The director/composer considers it to be one of his best musical works. It features dark, ambient drones, piano, and utilizes heavy usage of early synthesizers such as the Sequential Circuits Prophet 5, Prophet 10, and Minimoog Model D. Carpenter strived to achieve a softer, understated fear rather than a heavy handed, and obvious musical composition to a horror film. The now classic score successfully captures the haunting emptiness of the 1980 gothic-ghost-story to The Fog.

The Fog vinyl soundtrack features a 180 gram double LP album with colored vinyl, deluxe packaging, a 12-page booklet including unreleased behind-the-scenes set photography, and full album artwork by Jérémy Pailler.

There are two variants that are available for pre-order at the Waxwork Records online shop. The first is a "Ghost Eyes" colored vinyl that is coke bottle clear and has double red circles, and the other is "The Fog" colored vinyl with a white and sea-blue swirl. Meanwhile, Sacred Bones Records has another variant (not pictured) that is also coke bottle clear, but it has a red and white splatter, and it's limited to just 500 copies. All of the different versions cost $36 each.

Even though Escape From New York won't be celebrating its 40th anniversary until next year, Waxwork Records is getting a head start on the celebrations with this new vinyl soundtrack release. Here's what they had to say about the score produced by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth:

The score was written by John Carpenter and co-produced by Carpenter and Alan Howarth. Howarth used equipment including ARP and Prophet-5 synthesizers and a Linn LM-1 drum machine, as well as an acoustic piano and Fender guitars, to create the palette of sounds used in the score, while Carpenter composed the melodies on the synthesizer keyboards. As the MIDI standard had yet to be invented, Howarth manually synchronized the equipment to picture while listening to a copy of the film's dialogue. Initial inspirational directions which Carpenter shared with Howarth included albums by Tangerine Dream and The Police.

The Escape From New York vinyl soundtrack features a deluxe double LP with 180 gram colored vinyl, deluxe packaging, a 12-page booklet featuring unreleased behind-the-scenes set photography, and full album artwork by Marc Aspinall.

There are two variants that are available for pre-order at the Waxwork Records online shop. The first is a "Descent into New York" colored vinyl that's fire orange with blue and white splatter, and the other is a "Statue of Liberty" blue, green, and black marbled colored vinyl. Meanwhile, Sacred Bones Records has another variant (not pictured) with an orange marble record and a blue marble record, and it's limited to just 500 copies. All of these different versions cost $36 each.