Listen to Soundtracks for Horror Films, a film score by yours truly – Eric’s Music

I’ve been lax in giving the world the music I’ve been creating over the last year or two, especially since there has been some stuff I’m proud of that exists in silence, so here is a film score composed by yours truly: Soundtracks for Horror Films: Music Inspired by the Wash.

Except there is no movie of The Wash.

Therefore there can’t be a soundtrack for it.

Feel free to consider this collection of music anyway. The Wash is in part what was in my head as I composed it, after all. Just skip to the video and download link below if all you want is the music!

Otherwise, some explanation is required.

This is soundtrack music inspired in part by a horror novel written by my friend Cary Christopher. Called The Wash, it’s a creepy slow burn that relies more on unseen terror than it does monsters and gore – and that’s just how I like them. Had the pleasure of reading early versions of it and even at its earliest stages, Cary had created a heady mood. He’s a writer who will at some point be on shelves near you. I know it. And he’ll have earned it. So keep your eyes peeled for his stuff!

Anyway, flash forward a few years after first reading the book. During a stretch of several weeks in spring 2018, I started drifting off to sleep at night while experimenting with string arrangements on my tablet. Just messing with software, I guess. These fatigue-induced, foggy pieces would sometimes leave me a bit unsettled. I did them in the wee hours of the morning, after all, sometimes while under the covers in a dark room, and yeah, in those conditions there were moments when the wailing drones coming from my headphones kind of made me paranoid of shadows with voices who hear thoughts and bring dreams alive and house centipedes that know my name.

Or something.

But the music was clicking. I started thinking in terms of psychological horror scenes from movies that didn’t exist. Scenes like this one from films like Annihilation inspired me, too. That ominous sickness appealed to me. The Lovecraftian idea of terror you couldn’t see or understand. Of a sound that takes over a room, or mind, and fills you with an unsettling feeling of unease.

I experimented, I played, and music just kept coming. A lot of it. The stuff that worked worked pretty well, I think.

Here is a sample, the opening track, The Doppelganger, (with a video I dashed together from found footage):

That track kind of got it all rolling.

And with Cary’s story in my head, I started thinking in terms of scenes; moments; narrative.

And so it became a score or soundtrack or whatever for a movie that didn’t exist, with Cary’s The Wash being one of several inspirations, and certainly one that became prominent as the unexpected music project went on.

And I think it holds together as exactly that. The result is this – download it or check out the cover and tracklist before downloading it below:

1. The Doppelganger
2. Millions Laughing at Us
3. First Pass
4. The Coyote (Sleepwalk)
5. Out the Back Door
6. Guy Outside the Door
7. End of Spring Shame Sleeps
8. Hope For a Solar Eclipse
9. Sky Tears Open
10. Shifting Realities
11. Ascending the Stairs
12. Remembering
13. Millions More Crying

You can download the entire album (in zipped 320kp mp3s) at this link, so download away and enjoy. For those of you importing it into iTunes or something like that, it will appear in your music collection as “San Juan, Eric” and the album title “Soundtracks for Horror Films.” I’ll talk to Cary. There are about an hour of outtakes I can provide him. Maybe he’ll want to give them out if you review his book or something. Don’t know. Haven’t asked him yet! For now, just check out this music.

I like it.

You should download it.

You will like it, too.

Just don’t get stoned and listen to it at 2am, because that has Bad Times written all over it.