escape from new york
JOHN CARPENTER & ALAN HOWARTH / SILVA SCREEN RECORDS
According to sound designer Alan Howarth, John Carpenter never intended to release a soundtrack album for his 1981 dystopian thriller. “‘Really?’” Howarth recalls Carpenter baulking at the notion. “‘Someone will want to listen to that?’” For the Halloween director, the rules were simple: get in, score the damn film, and get out fast.
Innovative, resourceful and hugely influential on those who did listen to it, Carpenter and Howarth’s score conjured minimalist magic from these utilitarian principles, with more lasting effects than expected. For Howarth, it was his chance to boldly go into a different kind of future after Star Trek: The Motion Picture, his debut sound-design gig. For Carpenter, it was a bridge to more expansive work after his earlier, leaner scores.
When he began working with Howarth, Carpenter brought along albums by Tangerine Dream and The Police as a steer. The clearest Police nod never made the film – ‘Snake Shake’ echoes team Sting’s ‘Driven To Tears’. But Howarth caught on fast to his boss’ desired merger of synthetic moods and rock rhythms.
While Howarth improvised on sequencers, oscillators and the newly minted LinnDrum, Carpenter layered zero-fuss melodies on top. The results hit gold with the indelible title theme, a future-western hybrid of throbbing dread, measured swagger and metronomic ticks. Off the bat, Escape From New York announces itself as a story on a deadline, for Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken as much as its nuclear-threatened world.
That fusion of story, character and theme holds firm throughout. According to Howarth, one guiding policy was, “Let actors be actors.” Essentially, don’t drown Snake in sound. The music makes its presence felt all the more for that restraint. ‘Airforce One’ and ‘Across The Roof’ are models of controlled tension, taut and sure. The Debussy-influenced ‘The Engulfed Cathedral’ manages to introduce a ceremonial quality without sounding over-burdened.
Elsewhere, Howarth’s impressive resourcefulness shows itself. On ‘Crazies Come Out’, he banged on a pedal-steel for creepy effect. ‘The Duke Arrives’ taps into blaxploitation and new-wave grooves. Best of all, ‘Over The Wall’ vividly channels krautrock’s influence into motorik action fuel.
Those influenced in turn ranged from electro-naut composer Hudson Mohawke to Portishead boss and soundtrack don Geoff Barrow, whose unused Dredd score, Drokk (with Ben Salisbury), oozes Carpenter-esque class. For Howarth and Carpenter, Escape was the beginning of a fertile friendship, spanning Halloween II to They Live. Even if they worked well separately, they made one hell of a team. Kevin Harley