Steve Moore has been steadily carving out a career in movies. Soundtracking a string of cult “genre” features, from 2015’s The Guest, to, most recently, 2022’s Christmas Bloody Christmas. In 2021 he took time out to collaborate with legendary Library Music House KPM, producing an LP of classic “cues” called Analog Sensitivity. Steve now has a new album ready with KPM spin-out, Fold. Titled Cursed Objects it’s billed as another library project, but plays like one of his horror scores. However, that doesn’t mean it’s all obsidian and satanic.

Opener, The Uninvited One, for example, is full of gently fluttering keys and waves of romantic, new age-nuanced shimmering. The title track is a big “virtual orchestra” number, where the synths sound like strings and woodwinds, and trace enchanted themes. The rapid racing sequences of Evolutionary Steps are much more kosmische, but, again, accompanied by a swooning silicon chip symphony. Marching machines drive the similarly symphonic, The Icarus Feather, toward an unknown destination. “The light” is only one possibility, and the piece has an epic air of impending adventure. A tone of “to be continued…” This track is later reprised, shaken by snares and Tangerine Dream-esque. Tickled by trickling sound effects, Daily Affirmations is a slow, seductive waltz that summons `70s soft porn / slasher scenes of a female protagonist dressing / undressing, admiring herself in a mirror. Mesmer’s Bubble’s arrangement is icier. Introducing a touch of tragedy. Quiet Springs seems to pick up where the album’s first track left off, but harp-led it becomes a pause for reflection and thought. A respite, perhaps, prior to the third act’s final onslaught.

Festival Of Samhain, though, is a number that definitely dwells in the dark. A dedication to the pagan celebration that marks summer’s end, and harvests, before winter starts, it seems to suggest storms gathering, danger approaching, the stacking of uneven odds. The closing Shard Of Medusa is the set’s most melancholy moment. Highly strung, and aching, its lonely piano crying as the credits roll. Timeless, cinematic stuff, it’s as suited to an introspective sunset smoke or cocktail, as, say, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Cafe del Mar favourite from Bertolucci’s The Sheltering Sky.

Steve Moore’s Cursed Objects is out, on vinyl, care of Be With Records, later this month.