Delving into the horror of sound
 

Greetings all, i've just started on a project with a couple of friends of mine, each of us has to come up with a 30 song playlist containing the most unsettling, terrifying pieces of music we know. I so far have around 20 tracks, which are posted below. What im asking from you is do you have any other suggestions, and if you were to do one of these, what would your 20 consist of?

Mine thus far:

Comus - Bitten
Cromagnon - Toth, Scribe I
Set Fire To Flames - There Is No Dance In Frequency And Balance
Henry Cow - Solemn Music
Fifty Foot Hose - Cauldron
Popol Vuh - Die Nacht Der Himmel
Michael Gordon - Excerpt Three
Bauhaus - Double Dare
Massacre - Gate
Daniel Johnston - Despair Came Knocking
Trencher - Nightmares On Crack St
Art Bears - Civilization
Faust - Mamie Is Blue
White Noise - Love Without Sound
The Residents - Isolation
Swans - Beautiful Child
Arab On Radar - God Is Dad
Flying Saucer Attack - Rainstorm Blues
Mount Eerie - My Heart Is Not At Peace
This Heat - Cenotaph
Throbbing Gristle - What A Day
Nurse With Wound - Two Mock Projections
The Telescopes - Oil Seed Rape
MARS - Hairwaves
This Mortal Coil - The Horizon Bleeds And Sucks It's Thumb.

I've left out bands like The Cure and Siouxie & The Banshees because i wanted to go down a more challenging route.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YprQnzRfjg

the scariest song ive ever heard

Some personal favorites of mine that you could benefit from checking out.

Violent Femmes - Country Death Song


Violent Femmes - Never Tell


Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Tupelo


King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man (For sheer mindblowing factor)


Leadbelly - Where Did You Sleep Last Night?


Leonard Cohen - Avalanche


I'd post some more but I've got to run.

scariest motherfucking music i've ever heard.

Bricks were shat.

Check out Spires That In The Sunset Rise. Really it depends on who your audience is, if it's someone who already loves Comus then good luck freaking them out. If it is someone kind of new to the harder stuff to get into then even easy listening like Nick Cave should do the trick. It's all subjective in my book.

These are some pretty interesting artists that Zarko was writing about.

I was listening to this earlier on and you should take something off this:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA240_.jpg

and this:


Dead Machines are a good bet too.

Public Image Limited-Poptones


The Afghan Whigs-My Curse

Man I love that King Crimson, but I wouldn't really call it scary. Just awesome.

But Country Death Song is creepy as hell.

Enemite - Sepulture Of All Imago The Anathema
Desiderii Marginis - The Ever Green Tree
Sortsind - Vandrer Blandt Dødninge
1349 - Horns
1000 Funerals - Portrait of a Dream

Just imagine hearing that in 1969.

I don't recall ever being horrified by any music but I have always found Steve Austin's (Today Is The Day) vocal delivery pretty creepy. He just seems like an honestly vicious, hateful dude who will hurt you if he can.

Such a great band.


I'm gonna bring back some old school 'dac' and say Climbing Up the Walls by Radiohead. Just flat out creepy throughout, especially at the end with the screams of what seem like pure terror.

Good call Dac. Something about that whiney shrieked delivery of the "climbing up the walls" line chills the blood.

Really? I've got some advice for you guys - stay out of the Fun House when the carnival comes to town - you'll have nightmares for weeks.

Agree to disagree...

Also, I forgot this very important candidate:

That is exactly the type of thing im looking for.

Thanks alot everyone, some really awesome suggestions, especially stuff like PiL, Celtic Frost and Suicide, cant believe i left these guys out, considering PiL are one of my favourite bands too. The audience i'm catering too arent particularly well versed in this kind of stuff i'd say, not meaning to blow my own trumpet but i think all three of us have a deeper, more eclectic taste in music. I want to be particularly shocking by removing the listener from their comfort zone; exposing them to the more avant garde side of music. My plan was to create something of a symphony, a cosmic horror that seamlessly flows to appear as an hour long exercise in endurance.

That sounds pretty cool. Will have to check out the album.

I'm not sure anything has topped this for me personally.

You could pretty much compose one hell of a scary playlist from LLN bands alone.

Throbbing Gristle - Hamburger Lady
both Velvet Underground's Lady Godiva's Operation and The Gift are very unsettling if you pay close attention to their lyrics

Something from Universe Zero's highly creepy and enjoyable album Heresie would fit the playlist well. I see you got some other RIO-y acts there already.

Unless you count recent bonus material, the album contains three songs. The opener track La Faulx may be the creepiest, but it's also 25+ minutes long which I'm guessing is a bit much. Both the the last two songs are about 13 minutes and both are nice and should fit, but I think track 2 called "Jack the Ripper" is my favourite of the two.

There's nothing scary about this, but it is insanely awesome, what a fucking performance.

And good call on Univers Zero Tore, Heresie is one of the creepiest albums ever.

Halloween's been and gone, but what the hey, Thergothen need a nod, funeral doom at its fucking grimmest.

Sopor Aeternus is probably by far one of the creepiest acts in music:





Blut Aus Nord is another good choice:





As I would also say Whitehouse is:





Dog Fashion Disco is pretty ****ed up in like 80 different ways:





By far, probably the scariest act in music. Charles Manson:



(/\ especially the second half)

You win, Sopor Aeternus is fucked up.

Blut Aus Nord are great, Whitehouse almost unlistenable.

This will always rattle the bones:

I picture that Gooble Gobble scene from Freaks when I listen to Circus Contraption.



Good stuff.

Smell & Quim

years ago i bought on ebay their first album "Jesus Christ" on a complete whim.....mainly because the seller refused to show the cover art and claimed that it may get you arrested.....so after forking out $11 i got the album.....damn...i'm not sure if arrested would be correct.....but i'm sure i would be banned from this site forever if i posted a pic of the cover.....and the music is dreadful (in that good noise way)....at the time i was living in Minneapolis in an old farm house.....i put the album on full blast and went to do the dishes.....after about 5 minutes i started feeling very uneasy as if being stalked in some crazy serial killer flick.....good stuff :).....but the album cover transgresses even my morals


^from their 2nd album....still creepy

If only I could find an album as perfect as that again. It's a damn shame.

I've spent many a night trying to do just that. The closest I've come is with Lyrinx - Nihilistic Purity, and the Nyktalgia S/T. But they don't quite match the brutality of Sar.

Haven't been in the mood 'til now but having given it a listen that's some pretty good stuff.

Disturbing/Frightening music?
 

Yeah, so basically, I'm looking for frightening music that puts a lot of emphasis on creating an unsettling atmosphere.

Now, please don't recommend me metal (unless it's something really special), because screaming into a mic about disemboweling your dog is not my idea of disturbing (though I can relate, since I hate my dog :P)

My idea of scary music would be: Scott Walker's the drift, The Silent Hill Soundtracks, Toby Driver's solo project, Swan's Children of God and some modern classical music like Bartok maybe...

would appreciate any help :)

Listen to John Zorn, at least 150 of his albums are unsettling.

In Prokofievs 1st violin sonata at 3:17 you get a silent hill vibe before it fizzles out.

I may have to dig through my collection....

Stalaggh. Aphex Twin's ambient albums have always creeped me out. Hans Zimmer's Dark Knight score is also pretty creepy. Wolf Eyes. Troum.

That's just off the top of my head. Sorry, I'm far too lazy to dig through youtube for representative videos.

There is already a recently active thread on this topic.

http://www.musicbanter.com/general-m...hlight=univers

I suggest a merge.

There have been a lot of songs that try and express the horror of war. This one stands above all of them. Dark lyrics and that organ used to perfection.



If this is the musical equivalent of heroin... goddamn.

This is pretty dark: