Dark Piano Conspiracies is the sixth solo piano album from Manuel Peguero, following his Dark Piano Contemplations from last year. The New Jersey pianist/composer is a very big fan of dark, mysterious music, if you didn’t pick up on that from his two most-recent album titles! Dark Piano Conspiracies contains twelve movie themes, some that are very familiar and some that are not-so-much. Many of the tracks are very intense and some can be a little unnerving in their dark “spookiness,” so Manuel has obviously succeeded well with his approach to these arrangements!

Dark Piano Conspiracies begins with “Look Who’s Talking” from Oldboy, a 2003 Korean film that was re-made in the US and released in 2013. A repeated rolling broken-chord pattern runs through most of the piece, keeping it very intense and letting listeners know that Peguero wasn’t kidding about “dark piano”! “Damien” from Omen II is even darker and more intense. The very active left hand suggests running away from something awful while the right hand melody is never far behind. Yikes! “The X Files” was one of my all-time favorite TV shows, and I love Peguero’s arrangement of the theme! The middle section of the piece is deceptively calm and quite beautiful before returning to the more familiar main theme. “The Search” is the main theme from Against All Odds (1984) and has a very ominous left hand in the deep bass of the piano while the right hand is atmospheric and abstract. “Vampire Masquerade” lifts the mood quite a bit with fast waltz - I really like this one, too! “The Murder of Don Fanucci” comes from The Godfather II and while it isn’t really scary, it is very powerful and colorful. “Rame Tep,” from Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), has a quick and relentless bass pattern that runs through most of the piece while the melody dances around it. “The Zoltar” is another favorite and comes from the 1988 movie, Big, which starred Tom Hanks. I couldn’t remember any scary parts of that movie, so I looked it up, and the piece is about the coin-operated fortune-telling machine that appears in the story. The piece is eerie and very intense as well as another favorite! “The Persuaders Theme” is from a British action/comedy television series with Tony Curtis and Roger Moore that ran from 1971-72. Much lighter than many of the pieces on the album, it still feels dark and mysterious. “Capricorn One (Main Theme & Evading Capture)” and “The Map Room” from Raiders of the Lost Ark are two of the darkest and most intense pieces on the album. They are also quite discordant without a distinct melody or rhythm - both are very atmospheric, though! “It’s Cursed, That Gun” from The Mexican (2001) includes some acoustic guitar as well as the piano and brings the album to a more relaxed close.

Dark Piano Conspiracies just might be a very good fit for any upcoming Halloween activities as well as any other time some dark and spooky music feels appropriate! The album is available to stream and download on Amazon, Bandcamp and Apple Music/iTunes as well as on many streaming platforms including Spotify and Pandora. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll fall asleep listening to this one!