Those familiar with the work of John Carpenter will understand the importance of Dark Star, the darkly comic sci-fi tale with which he made his directorial debut in 1974. As with many of his later films, Carpenter composed the soundtrack - almost entirely on synthesizers, of course - which was later released as a standalone album. This timely reissue contains both of the original 'tracks' from the 1980 release, which blend Carpenter's far-sighted, experimental synthesizer work with snippets of dialogue and spacey sound effects from the movie. As a bonus, the label has included a trio of notable cover versions of tracks from the movie, including Dominik Hauser's country take on tongue-in-cheek theme song "Benson Arizona".