A long-overdue re-release for one of the great, under-appreciated film scores of the 1980s.
Amongst the many glories of Neil Jordan’s 1984 film The Company of Wolves – the glorious adaptation of Angela Carter’s stories that defined ‘folk horror’ long before that phrase was run into the ground – was the soundtrack music by George Fenton. An atmospheric mix of electronics and traditional instruments, the music is a baroque dreamscape, both moody and ethereal, unsettling and sweet.
Although issued as a vinyl soundtrack album in 1984, the score has remained out of print since then and – much like The Company of Wolves itself – has rather sailed under the radar ever since. Just as the film is rarely talked about in comparison with other, lesser 1980s horror movies (even though it is very much the sort of narrative that is now in vogue), so Fenton’s score has not been talked about as one of the great movie soundtracks of the era – perhaps in a world where the parping literalism and orchestral excesses of John Williams are seen as the epitome of the film score and the ghastly Hans Zimmer is all over everything, the less bombastic pleasures of this score are just too subtle for soundtrack fans to appreciate.
Nevertheless, there are those of us who love both the film and the soundtrack, and so the announcement of a soundtrack album re-release from Cold Spring is welcome indeed. The new edition is a 180g black vinyl edition only and is released on December 10th. You can pre-order here: https://coldspring.co.uk/csr299lp
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