Blood Meridian: An Imaginary Soundtrack

An imagined soundtrack for the book BLOOD MERIDIAN (or AN EVENING REDNESS IN THE WEST) By Cormac McCarthy. This album was inspired by and is meant as an imaginary soundtrack set to the novel Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I feel that in the years of Hellenica I've worked towards creating what McCarthy masterfully portrays in literature into music which is, to put simply, an underlining darkness and doom embedded in a haunted western landscape. Review from Monolith Cocktail: Jim loosely makes references to various chapters, scenes from the story; the most obvious being the opener ‘The Blood Of Toadvine’, which refers to the character of the same name, an acquaintance of “the kid”, member of the gang and the link in the chain of events that lands our protagonist towards almost esoteric barbarity. Here it’s scored with a yearning Western vibrato twanged arrangement that takes us across a supernatural-desert landscape. Hints of a voiceless Crime & The City Solution, the Bad Seeds, Alex Puddu and a very removed Roy Budd merge into that setting. A re-imagined Morricone rubs shoulders with John Carpenter, Mandy soundtrack Jóhana Jóhannson, Wovenhand and Belbury Poly on this intrepid gothic, often eerie album of bloodletting. Yet amongst the Western tremolo and rattles, the mirages and warbles, there’s a suffused current of 80s sci-fi, adventure, and a dream-realism spell of Gallo thriller/horror. There’s even a touch of early Mute Records synthesized drums, and an air of new romanticism Visage on the deep groaning, skeleton bones traced ‘Parallax And False Guidance’. And the “169” frequency broadcasting, soft cantered ‘Westward Again’ sounds like a meeting between Kavinsky and Moroder. Despite the material at its core, this soundtrack is peppered with sounds of celeste like chimes, soft walking melodies and dreamy halftime progressive jazz drums. If they do ever get past all the issues and actually get this book on the screen, Jim’s got the soundtrack ready to go. Western scores have rarely sounded so different and mysterious; tragic and esoteric.