Local horror composers unleash their new soundtrack,...
Eerie sounds and terrifying tunes flow through their veins. Edward Douglas and Gavin Goszka, the dastardly duo behind Midnight Syndicate, have been working to audibly send shivers through our bodies since 1995.
The spooky songwriters, based in Chardon, have just unleashed their 14th studio album—"Carnival Arcane." In true Midnight Syndicate-style, this new disc focuses on thematic music and special sound effects, but this time with a wicked, old-school carvinal twist.
If you're not familiar with Midnight Syndicate, their stuff is not the typical soundtrack used by Halloween home haunters. There's no repeating wolf howls, cackling witches or crashes of thunder. Instead, it's actual music.
Throughout the years, Midnight Syndicate's wretched wrath has strangled the Halloween industry with retailers selling their discs nationwide. Their music has echoed through the halls of haunted attractions across the country, and has even appeared in movies, television specials and video games.
When AOL ranked the 10 best Halloween CDs of all time back in 2009, Midnight Syndicate fell on their list three times—#8, #4 and #3—coming behind the soundtrack for "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Halloween."
At their CD release party for "Carnival Arcane" at the Boneyard in Mayfield Heights on Monday, August 1, the morbid musicians explained their motivation for the new CD.
Gavin Goszka: "It's something we always wanted to do," according to Gavin Goszka. "A lot of fans were asking, 'Hey, when are you guys going to do a carnival disc?' I think the time was just kind of right to put our own little spin on it. We wanted to do something a little bit different. I think we ended up going with more a historic kind of thing mixed with horror."
Edward Douglas: "The whole dark carnival theme has been done an awful lot. Isane Clown Posse practically made the empire out of music and merchandising the whole dark carnival theme. So it was important going forward with this disc that we put our own stamp it, make it our own. I think what we found ourselves most comforble with was an actual Victorian, Edwardian, turn-of-the-century carnival. Let's make the carnival attractions as authentic to the period as possible, and then build in those fantasy elements. Then of course build out the horrific elements, which are totally inspired by Ray Bradbury and "Something Wicked This Way Comes."
Gavin Goszka: "The whole idea is to bring you into this world, this carnival, and give you a sense of what's going on around you and such before we plunge you into the horrific side of things."
This new CD is now available on Amazon.com, iTunes, MidnightSyndicate.com and Halloween retailers nationwide. Starting August 8, "Carnival Arcane" will also be sold at select Hot Topic stores.
