Formed in 1996 in Cleveland, Ohio, Midnight Syndicate's gothic, horror, fantasy "soundtracks for the imagination" CDs feature a blend of neoclassical darkwave, dark ambient, and movie score-style music and sound effects. Consisting of composers Edward Douglas and Gavin Goszka, they are most known for their musical contributions to the holiday of Halloween, and Halloween music as well as to the haunted house, amusement park, and roleplaying game industries. Their music has been sampled by horrorcore artists like Insane Clown Posse, Twiztid, and Three Six Mafia and has been used in concerts by King Diamond and the Misfits.
Synonymous with the Halloween season and the haunted attraction industry, Midnight Syndicate is heard every October from Universal Studios Orlando, Warner Brothers, and Six Flags theme parks to haunted attractions and homes across America and around the world. In September of 2009, AOL released a list of the Top 10 Best Halloween Music CDs as ranked by AOL/CBS Radio listeners. Three of the ten CDs were Midnight Syndicate discs (#8, #4, and #3) ranking only behind Danny Elfman's Nightmare Before Christmas and John Carpenter's Halloween soundtrack.
Composer/filmmaker Edward Douglas founded Midnight Syndicate in 1996. In 1997, its self-titled debut was released with the majority of music on the album written, arranged, and performed by Douglas. Contributors included Scott Angus, Mark Rakocy, Dennis Carleton, Jamie Barbour, Ray Portler, the rap act Dark Side, and Christopher Robichaud. Douglas coined the term "cine-fusion" to describe the album. Cine-fusion is described in the album's liner notes as
"a blending of movie soundtrack music and pop music... a compilation of soundtracks to movies that do not exist. The goal of the music is to stimulate the imaginations of listeners so that they are able to transport themselves to worlds or movies of their own creation."
Musically, the album contained an eclectic blend of styles including everything from dark neoclassical instrumental music (of which three tracks appeared on future releases), rock], techno, rap, and space. Movie-style sound effects were employed in many tracks. In March 1998, a multimedia show was produced by Douglas and his company, Entity Productions, to support the album. The show included a blending of original short films, live music, animation and stage performers.
In 1998, Douglas teamed up with gothic fantasy artist Joseph Vargo, and the two decided to create an exclusively dark-themed instrumental Midnight Syndicate album. Composer Gavin Goszka, formerly a solo artist in a project called "Lore,"also joined Douglas and Vargo in the new Midnight Syndicate line-up. Together, they created Born of the Night, a groundbreaking album that appealed to fans of gothic music, the horror genre, and haunted attractions. Douglas and Goszka wrote, arranged, and performed the music on the album while Vargo served as executive producer of the project, writing and performing the vocals and narrations, and designing the cover art and packaging. Born of the Night was independently released in September 1998 through Vargo's Monolith Graphics and Douglas' Entity Productions, hitting the horror market just in time for the Halloween season. It was Midnight Syndicate's first critically acclaimed gothic-horror soundtrack and proved to be an instant success, establishing Midnight Syndicate's trademark sound.
In March 2000, Realm of Shadows followed suit with the same flavor of dark instrumental music and another gothic setting. Both albums were featured as official soundtracks for Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights, and used in several other major theme parks during Halloween, such as Busch Gardens, Cedar Point and Thorpe Park's Fright Nights event. The heavy metal band King Diamond also featured tracks as opening music for their 2000 US tour. Afterwards, Vargo and Midnight Syndicate chose to work separately of one another on future projects.
Midnight Syndicate's third gothic horror soundtrack, Gates of Delirium, was released in 2001. This time Douglas and Goszka teamed up with two members who worked on the first Midnight Syndicate CD, Mark Rakocy (graphic design) and Christopher Robichaud (vocals).
Midnight Syndicate called on fantasy artist Keith Parkinson to design the packaging for their fourth gothic soundtrack, Vampyre, released in 2002. The following year, the band released the first officially-licensed soundtrack to the classic roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons.
In 2005, they released their seventh CD, The 13th Hour. It featured vocal effects by Lily Lane of the horror-rock band Lazy Lane and another cover by Keith Parkinson. The album won the Origins Award for Best Gaming Accessory presented by the Academy of Adventure Game Art & Design, marking the first time a role-playing soundtrack or music CD has won the award.
Out of the Darkness - Retrospective: 1994-1999 was released in 2006 and featured re-recorded v
