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• Limited Bloody Edition 12" Archive Find

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  FROM THE VAULTS! Rescued from retirement, these are the last 40 copies of Ben Tramer’s Halloween EP, long thought sold out but recently discovered in the bowels of the Chemikal Underground stock room – now lovingly embellished with my bloody handprint!
  
  17 years ago, when I had plenty of vim and disposable income, I thought it would be fun to buy some studio time and record a tribute to the greatest movie soundtrack ever made. I’d been a fan of John Carpenter’s Halloween movie since I was a child – I think I first saw it as a 7-year-old, and loved it so intensely that by the age of 9 I’d written my own sequel. My Mum, you see, is a big horror fan, and she let me watch just about everything when I was wee, with the sole exception of The Exorcist because of “that bit with the crucifix”. Why terror, gore, and violence were okay while anything faintly sexual was considered taboo still perplexes me today. It happened with Brian de Palma’s Carrie too – pig’s blood and telekinetic crucifixion was fine, but I was told to cover my eyes when Carrie had her period. Grisly violence good; nature bad!
  
  Anyway, back to 2001, and there I am in the studio recording Carpenter covers for fun. Around this time, Chemikal Underground are starting their new singles club label, Fukd ID, and have begun looking for one-off releases to add to their collection. There were a few pretty cool 12”s on the imprint, including an Arab Strap one (which featured one of my favourite Strap tunes in Rocket Take Your Turn) and Interpol’s first ever EP (which I really should find and stick up on ebay, I've heard it's worth a bob or two), and somehow my Halloween tribute ended up being the sixth record in the series. Rather than release it as plain old Yours Truly, I chose the name Ben Tramer. As I’m sure many will know, this is the name of Jamie Lee Curtis’s love interest in the original film, although we never actually meet him. He does make an appearance in Halloween II, though – the real one, that is, not the one I wrote myself in Primary 5 – dressed in the same mask as the murderous Michael Myers, and – SPOILER! – is promptly killed in a case of mistaken identity. So we never do see his face, but I expect he was a handsome lad with a salt-and-pepper beard.
  
  And now to 2018, when I receive a phone call from Chemikal Underground HQ to say they’ve found a box of those old Ben Tramer EPs, and would I like to have them? ‘Why, yes, of course!’ I reply, and pretty soon Andrew from Chemikal is dropping the final copies at my flat. And now here they are for you, dear friends, in the year of the original Halloween’s 40th anniversary – so I’ve made 40 limited editions that have each been lovingly personalised with my bloody handprint, in celebration of the greatest horror film – and greatest soundtrack – in cinema history. I may even add a sprinkle of Halloween confetti too.
  
  Happy Halloween!
  
  Aidan
  
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  Includes unlimited streaming of Halloween EP via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. ... more

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