Hear New John Carpenter Songs “Skeleton” and “Unclean Spirit”

John Carpenter has just released two brand new songs, “Skeleton” and “Unclean Spirit,” which you can listen to below.

These songs are the first new, non-soundtrack music Carpenter has released since 2016’s Lost Themes II.

Collaborating again with his son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies, his bandmates and co-composers for the David Gordon Green-directed Halloween films, Carpenter shared the propulsive new single “Skeleton” and its B-side, the haunting “Unclean Spirit” on his social media accounts today (7/3/20).

The sessions for these songs saw the trio shifting their focus from scoring for the screen and engaging a totally different creative muscle. Instead of being guided by what was happening in the world of Halloween, they were free to work toward other ends.

“It was refreshing to be able to write music that didn’t have to fit to any sort of locked image,” Carpenter says. “We also had a specific focus and direction we wanted to follow when working on Halloween, both in terms of mindset and instruments, and being able to return to working without that narrow focus was refreshing. Although working on Halloween didn’t specifically influence any of these new compositions, there is always a honing of craft that must take place when working on a film like Halloween, and our improved skills definitely helped us in writing these songs.”

Both of the new songs are streaming now, and you can pre-order them as a limited edition 12″ that comes out August 28 from Sacred Bones.

You can hear both new tracks below.

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