JAMES CHAPMAN’S LONG-LOST HORROR SOUNDTRACK
“…an instrumental exposition of foreboding, a moody and melancholic collection of songs.” — Electronic Sound
Maps — the project of James Chapman — releases his long-lost horror soundtrack, Welcome To The Tudor Gate, out now via Mute.
Originally recorded in 2014 and lost until now, Welcome To The Tudor Gate is a haunting, cinematic work — a soundtrack to a half-remembered film, watched late into the night and forgotten for years, until fragments and stills resurfaced in Chapman’s memory. To fill in the gaps, he decided to create the film’s missing soundtrack.
“Inspired by a film that I was never able to trace,” Chapman explains, “I set out to create a mysterious, strange, and uneasy soundtrack — with a nod to the fantastical. I imagined a protagonist venturing into a foreboding land of immense forests, filled with mysterious beings — where magic is real, and witchcraft is feared.”
The 37-minute album unfolds as a continuous journey divided into chapters, following the imagined film’s protagonist deeper into this eerie landscape.
Chapman continues, “The Tudor Gate of the title was originally envisaged as a community or cult, influenced by films like Blood On Satan’s Claw and The Wicker Man. The music draws from the horror soundtracks of the ‘60s and ‘70s — the worlds of Dario Argento, John Carpenter, and writers like H.P. Lovecraft and the tradition of weird fiction.”
