The folks at Waxwork Records are always dropping excellent new vinyl releases, but the package they’ve put together for composer Stephen McKeon’s Evil Dead Rise soundtrack is particularly easy on the eyeballs (no pun intended).
Take a look…
According to the Waxwork Records website, the 2XLP Evil Dead Rise soundtrack includes…
- The Complete Soundtrack By Stephen McKeon
- 2xLP 180 Gram “Deadite & Blood” Hand Poured Colored Vinyl
- Old Style Tip-On Gatefold Jackets with Built In Pages From The Book Of The Dead
- New Artwork By Steve Reeves
- Printed Inner Sleeves
Included with Waxwork’s press release is a great, lengthy quote from McKeon about how the score came together:
“To create the music for the film, Evil Dead Rise director Lee Cronin turned to composer Stephen McKeon, who previously worked with the filmmaker on The Hole in the Ground. McKeon, an admitted ‘huge horror fan,’ discussed his approach to the film’s soundtrack. ‘Lee liked the idea of something offscreen laughing and delighting at the suffering and terror of the characters, so I recorded two female vocalists performing ‘taunting’ sounds and vocal effects.’
“‘(Lee) wanted a score that was visceral, immersive, and confrontational, while still leaving room for an emotional theme. So, I began to create sounds and textures based on guitar feedback; guitar strings stretching and breaking; strings being ripped with knives and scissors; and many other weird effects. Many of these made it into the score as part of the texture and tapestry. But ultimately, for the signature, we hit upon an idea we called ‘the meat grinder.’ I spent a week creating lots of sounds using a variety of methods, but eventually, the one that worked was the result of me dragging carving knives along the strings of my beautiful grand piano and then chopping and stretching the audio into something that eventually sounded like a demonic meat grinder being revved up.
“The composer also used a decidedly non-traditional approach when writing for the orchestra and female chorus that provided the music for the main body of the score. For example, one instruction for the 50-plus string players read simply, ‘Rage for 15 seconds.’ McKeon also recorded various stringed and percussion instruments, ‘being tortured, broken, and slowly dismembered. Then, these recordings were chopped up, bent, and stretched before being fed, screaming for mercy, into the score.'”
Waxwork Records’ Evil Dead Rise soundtrack (all 20 [!!!] tracks of it) will arrive in July, but can can pre-ordere it now via the company’s official website, and we plan to play our copy whenever it’s time to grate some cheese. Stay tuned for more on Evil Dead Rise as further updates become available!
