The release of John Carpenter‘s second album of original ethereal, doom-laden electronic tracks, Lost Themes II, is a little over a month away from release, but already he’s released his second single off of it to go along with a whole new spate of U.S. tour dates.
This second track, “Angel’s Asylum,” complements the album’s lead track “Distant Dreams” in an interesting way. While “Dreams” sounds like a more fully instrumental take on the kind of music from his earlier films, like Assault on Precinct 13 or Escape from New York, “Asylum” feels a little more like a dark lullaby, the kind of thing he’d have put in his ’90s films like Village of the Damned or In the Mouth of Madness. See if you agree!
The title of the track derives from a comic book called Asylum that Carpenter created alongside his wife and producer Sandy King and actor Thomas Ian Griffith, with whom he worked in the 1998 film Vampires. “We initially started writing it for the comic book and we liked it so much we decided to put it on the album,” Carpenter said in the press release for the single. Not sure how you write a song for a comic book, but if anyone can, it’s John Carpenter.
On top of the new song, a new string of U.S. tour dates have been announced for the coming year to go with all the international dates that have already been on the books. Those include:
6/14 – Seattle – Paramount
6/15 – Portland – Arlene Schnitzer
6/17 – Oakland – Fox Theatre
6/18 – Los Angeles – Orpheum
6/21 – Denver – Gothic Theatre
6/23 – Austin Moody Theatre @ ACL LIVE
6/24 – Dallas – Majestic Theater
7/08 – New York – Playstation Theatre
7/12 – Washington, DC – Lincoln Theatre
7/15 – Detroit – The Masonic Temple
I’ve already got my tickets for the Los Angeles show, and couldn’t be more excited about it.
Lost Themes II was made by Carpenter, his son Cody, and his godson Daniel Davies, as well as a full backing band to give his new creepy sound a bit more resonance. You can pre-order the album here, and you get both “Distant Dreams” and “Angel’s Asylum” to download right now.
Let us know what you think of the new song in the comments below!
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Image: Kyle Cassidy
Kyle Anderson is the Weekend Editor and a film and TV critic for Nerdist. Follow him on Twitter!
