October 2, 2020 (Revised news copy)
Extended OSTs for HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON and VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED announced for Varèse Sarabande’s Latest CD Club Releases
Varèse Sarabande has announced its October limited edition CD Club offerings:
The Oscar nominated score by John Powell to HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2010) is provided with a 2-CD Deluxe Edition that features the original score from the film along with alternate versions and demos.
Regarding his initial creative approach, Powell took the Viking milieu literally and started researching Scandinavian folk tunes and musical traditions, which he says are “wonderfully cold and warm at the same time.” DreamWorks’ Jeffrey Katzenberg advised him to “throw some Enya at it” [Enya is a prolific Irish singer, songwriter and record producer].
In the film, the adults all speak with a Scottish brogue, whereas the kids have American accents, which Powell saw as a subtle symbol of generational shifts: “So there’s this kind of mismatch of Viking theory going on. But what I got from that comment, about ‘throwing some Enya at it,’ was that Irish, Scottish, and to a certain extent Old English folk songs can have a warmth to them that perhaps I wasn’t utilizing, because I was being a bit too intellectual. I thought, okay, I’m just going to go back to my roots, as it were. And those roots are maybe deeper than I’d realized—and before I knew it, I had bagpipes. Even though I laughed, in my head a lot of doors opened.” The package includes detailed liner notes by film music journalist Tim Greiving. This significant expansion features 42 tracks and is limited to 3,000 copies.
Also released is an expanded 2-disc presentation of the soundtrack to John Carpenter’s remake of VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1995). The 1995 remake of VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED comes from influential horror director John Carpenter, who also co-scored the soundtrack with his friend Dave Davies of the British band The Kinks. The 2-CD Deluxe Edition includes the score as heard in the film, the separate mix that Carpenter did for the 1995 soundtrack album, three film mixes that were not included on the 1995 album, and an alternate take on the climactic “March of the Children” track. John Carpenter almost always created a separate mix of his film score for the album release, which is what is heard on the 1995 soundtrack album. Carpenter and Davies worked for five weeks to create and produce a score that merged electronic synthesizers with live instruments. Carpenter described their score as one of the most full, romantic scores he’d ever done. “My job as a composer is to support the drama, unify sequences, and heighten suspense,” he wrote in the previous album liner notes. “Together, Dave and I tried to bring emotional life to the story of a small town invaded by children with unusual powers and a total lack of humanity.”
The album includes all-new original art direction, classic film stills, and new liner notes by film music journalist Randall D. Larson. This is a limited edition of 2,000 copies.
