Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email


2025 October 20 • Monday

John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) is one of the clearest examples of how important music can be in a film. The next time you watch it, consider what you'd be looking at and experiencing without the score. Many of the current crop of filmmakers have shown themselves to be quite adept at using music (and strong visual sense) to create tension and suspense.

The 879th Soundtrack of the Week is from one such movie: You're Next with music by Jasper Justice Lee, Kyle McKinnon, Mads Heldtberg and Adam Wingard.

Death Waltz Recording Company put it out on red and white swirl vinyl!

One of many pleasures in the movie is the use of the Dwight Twilley Band song "Looking for the Magic". After a very short and ominous "Opening Stinger" by Adam Wingard, the record gets right into the song, which is heard in the movie several times.

Drones, backwards tones, an insistent tapping and intriguing electronic textures and percussion create Jasper Lee & Kyle McKinnon's "An Ill Wind", a great cue that also sounds different from what you usually get in horror scores.

"Shadow Thoughts", also by Lee/McKinnon, is more recognizably electronic, but airy and delicate while also sounding scary. At times the didgeridoo is suggested, or perhaps even used, for the star of the movie, Australian Sharni Vinson.

Then Lee/McKinnon come up with an arco string pulse for "Shadow Thoughts", which uses pizzicato strings and other sounds that are harder to identify, eventually opening up with echoey percussion and some wailing instruments, building with keyboard at the end.

Wind sounds and bursts of soft mechanical pounding start out Lee and McKinnon's "Arrows Through Glass", interrupted by an insistent high pitched tone, and then concluding with a more intense pounding

Then there's another Lee/McKinnon piece, "Death Awaits All", which uses a heartbeat motif and some reverby piano, percussion and electronic noises. Strings come creepily in to bring it to a finish.

Now it's Mads Heldtberg's turn with "Cutthroat Run", a low rumbling drone with bass pulses that might make your subwoofer shake the floor.

"Wailing" is another Lee/McKinnon piece and sounds similar to some of the crescendo and release moments from earlier cues.

For "Commando Mode" Adam Wingard has some analog synth sounds throbbing around, nothing fancy, very simple and effective.

Mads Heldtberg comes back for "Drake Prog", a noirish and slinky piece with a cool bass riff. Synth is the main instrument here and it sounds like Goblin's grandchild.

Just for fun, the A Side ends with "Erin Text Tone", which is credited to Liam Cooke. It's an old mobile phone alert sound, that's for sure. I guess there were three seconds left on the side!

Side B opens with Lee & McKinnon's "Terror", which starts with fast bowing strings on one note with echoey cymbal hits subtly supported by other instruments. Like the movie itself, the score is a triumph of creativity and hard work over a low budget.

"Shadow Thoughts II", also by Lee & McKinnon, has clarinets playing lines that weave around each other while more didgeridoo-like sounds and other long tones provide a background for them.

Mads Heldtberg's "Knife Through Glass" is a creepy, echoey, ambient track, very sparse and simple but beautifully done.

Lee & McKinnon contribute the next two tracks, "Enter the Tiger" and "Bad Animals", the former a pizzicatto-percussion tocsin aggravated by some startling intrusions by other sounds and the latter an echoey, ambient mood that's like a cousin of "Knife Through Glass" with a cluster out thrown in at the end.

Then we get "Nails" by Heldtberg, another one with continuously bowed strings on one note providing a platform for some swelling, ominous low tones from other instruments.

"Lurking", by Lee & McKinnon, continues that general mood but throws in some throbbing, electronic bass notes.

Heldtberg comes back after that with "Dead Mom", which begins with a hunting horn and continues with a pulsing synth beat and other electronic tones for a compelling, creepy and also almost catchy cue.

Director Adam Wingard contributes "Lamb Mask Death", which is genuinely catch, kind of like a Goblin Zombi outtake.

Kyle McKinnon on his own contributes "Run Motherfucker", another kind of groovy electronic piece, but this one very minnimalist and stripped down, basically a single riff.

Then Adam Wingard does "Fox Mask Death", which starts with various ambient and percussive electronic textures and alternates and blends it with a keening high-pitched tone, which I think is actually Lee & McKinnnon's "Kitchen Fight".

More groovy synth music kicks off an unused alternate track, Wingard with Lee and McKinnon creating "Renegade", which has some ethereal synth notes floating over a driving and urgent bass and drums track.

The record closes with another ringtone, "Felix Ringtone", which is actually kind of a funky, hard dance groove.