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Dirk Star Group: Members Posts: 1331 Joined: Sep. 2007 Posted: Nov. 18 2008, 07:13 Picking up on some stuff that both Gladstoner and Scatterplot were talking about in a seperate thread here.I`d like to talk about examples of music that scares the pants off yer.Or just maybe stuff that makes you feel a little uncomfortable I guess.Anyway this quote below here from Scatterplot brought some old memories back for me... Quote I like dark music. Dark, foreboding, bleak, scary. I remember when I was.....whatever age I was when I bought Renaissance Novella, I put on "Can You Hear Me" for a 16yo freind. The intro scared the hell out of him. To me that's funny, happy, grinning stuff......cheery, Santa Claus is coming to town stuff..... I remember years ago myself and a friend of mine would try and outdo each other with mix-tapes made up of the kind of stuff Scatterplot is talking about there(although I`m not familiar with that example I must admit)...You know the kind of music where you have to listen to it on headphones in a darkened room to appreciate it fully.Gladstoner mentioned in that thread a number of tracks from side two of Mike`s Killing Fields soundtrack which I remember were very high on our list of appreciation back then..The darker the merrier you could say.But I can also remember the soundtrack to the remake of the movie Cat People being held in very high regard at the time.As well as some stuff from Can and one or two tracks from Vangelis.The start of side two of Heaven & Hell I believe was one,along with Soil Festivities Part 3.That said though the scariest music I ever heard from Mr Vangelis was on the albums Beaubourg and Invisible Connections.But only scary in the sense that I paid bloody good money for them,..Jesus what a waste!   I also like music that makes you jump or startles you big time.There`s an instrumental track from Joe Jackson called No Pasaran which no matter how many times I listen to, causes me to jump right out of my chair.The whole thing has me on a bloody knife edge,especialy the first 2-3 minutes.Bernard Herrman the Hitchcock film composer is kind of the master of that for me also.And then another band just mentioned on this forum recently are God Speed You Black Emperor who I actualy find quite unsettling to listen to at times.I think it`s maybe a negative energy thing with them which I do quite like in a way.But it can be unnerving I think to listen to in the context of some of the statements they attempt to convey musicaly.In a more "popular" field I always felt The Stranglers were great exponents of the "negative vibe" if you like.Particularly on albums such as Black and White and The Gospel According To The Men In Black.So yeah anything "Apocalyptic" or linked to an "occult" in some way I often find a little uneasy going.But then it can also be oddly exhilerating as well I suppose, such as maybe Koyannisquatsi from Philip Glass. Any examples of a Whigfield/Aqua/Cheeky Girls nature,will be treated with the good humoured contempt they deserve!       Back to top

Dirk Star Group: Members Posts: 1331 Joined: Sep. 2007 Posted: Nov. 18 2008, 07:54 My mistake, it was the soundtrack to the film The Hunger I was thinking of earlier. Back to top

Holger Group: Members Posts: 1506 Joined: Feb. 2003 Posted: Nov. 18 2008, 10:02 Tool: I genuinely admire their talent, their music is mindblowing. But at the same time, the negativity it gives off is hard for me to stomach. Which is why I tend to listen to them in very small doses, mostly just one track at a time. Not sure that's the same as "scary" though. However, a few of their weird atmospheric tracks are genuinely scary; like "Faaip de Oiad" from Lateralus, or "Lost Keys" from 10,000 Days. I remember falling asleep while listening to Lateralus, and when Faaip de Oiad (the last track) came on, I guess I sort of half woke up but it felt more like having a nightmare. Back to top

Scatterplot Group: Members Posts: 1981 Joined: Dec. 2007 Posted: Nov. 18 2008, 14:07 Well, you need to procure Novella then. The intro has incredible dynamic range. You hear this metallic-wind-swirling sound swell quickly to an ear-staggering loudness, then many voices(no doubt overdubs of Haslam, Camp and Dunford) singing this frightening choir-like "stuff" VERY LOUD. Then it gets nice. One of the most beautiful orchestral/rock pieces ever recorded. I put this LP/album in my top 5. The other other 4 slots are held by Mike Oldfield. -------------- We raise our voices in the night Crying to heaven And will our voices be heard Or will they break Like the wind Back to top

Tubularman Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 2304 Joined: June 2004 Posted: Nov. 18 2008, 18:24 Angelo Badalamenti's track Into the night have a suprising moment that scares me.. Alot of his music is also scary and full of strange moods with mystic sounds and vocals. -------------- Mike Oldfield M i x e s https://soundcloud.com/tubularman Back to top

Holger Group: Members Posts: 1506 Joined: Feb. 2003 Posted: Nov. 19 2008, 03:47 Quote (Tubularman @ Nov. 19 2008, 00:24) Angelo Badalamenti's track Into the night have a suprising moment that scares me.. I know exactly what you mean.   Back to top

Dirk Star Group: Members Posts: 1331 Joined: Sep. 2007 Posted: Nov. 19 2008, 07:09 Angelo Badalamenti`s Into The Night is a good choice yes.That one certainly took me by surprise.I`m so pleased I was`nt working in the kitchen with a sharp knife or something first time I heard it. @Holger..I`m glad you picked up on what I was saying about "negativity in music" there.I think to a degree I maybe went off-topic with my introductory post really but it was something I wanted to talk about a little bit.Anyway from what I`ve heard from Tool(which is`nt a great deal admittedly) I can certainly see where you`re coming from.I don`t know I`d maybe draw comparisons with a couple of artists I like Queens Of The Stone Age and System Of A Down.They have a very bleak view of the human condition if you like.Which yeah it may not be scary as such,but it`s not something I`m always comfortable listening to I guess.There`s a band I really love at the moment called The Young Knives, whose lyrics although tinged with a fair amount of black humour.Are well,..decidedly bleak and maudlin to say the very least I suppose...Difficult one for me to sum up really without dissapearing up my own backside.. @Scatterplot..I do own a couple of albums from Renaissance on vinyl (Song For All Seasons,Azure d`or)..Which I bought at a car boot sale quite a few years ago now as I always loved their song Northern Lights..I must admit though I`ve only played them maybe a handful of times since.Although that`s mainly down to the fact I don`t listen to that much vinyl really..Anyway I have managed to procure Novella here,and I`m listening to it for the second time around now.I cartainly see what you mean about the first 30 seconds of Can You Hear Me heh heh.And the rest of it?.Yeah I love it I must admit,it`s right up my street in fact.I think I always saw Renaissance as sort of a cross between E.L.O./Yes/Steeleye Span.So the fact that I`m a big fan of those artists anyway,I don`t know why I did`nt delve deeper into these guys sooner.And her voice just makes my hairs stand on end,great stuff. Back to top

Bassman Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: Feb. 2008 Posted: Nov. 19 2008, 10:14 The entire score to "The Exorcist".  And it has nothing to do with MO's part in it.  The little bits and excerpts that William Friedkin snipped out of other artists' pieces all blend together into a stew that I don't often have the courage to listen to, day or night.  It is really and truly unsettling. To use a movie score in this thread might be a bit of a cheat, because a score is very deliberately put together with a specific goal in mind.  So I definitely have to give some more thought to including an original piece that just happens to be scary, though "The Rite Of Spring", while only scary in some parts, is one that springs to mind right away. Edited to include:  The Renaissance piece is great, but does the first 3 minutes or so remind anyone else of ELO's "Fire On High"?  That song's intro is a bit scary in itself, though in a sort of corny way.  Still arguably ELO's finest track. -------------- Turn up the music... Hi as Fi can go. Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Nov. 19 2008, 17:30 Quote (Holger @ Nov. 19 2008, 09:47) Quote (Tubularman @ Nov. 19 2008, 00:24) Angelo Badalamenti's track Into the night have a suprising moment that scares me.. I know exactly what you mean.   I do too. I love that track. Scary music? I don't think I know any. Some things used to scare me when I was a kid, such as the heartbeat at the start of Pink Floyd's "Speak to me". But then I got used to it, and of course that PF album is a classic... so now I don't think that there's any music that can scare me - not even the scariest movie themes. Of course I always get unexpected things all the time when I listen to a piece for the first time... when I first heard TB it was a bit hard for me to follow it through as a whole, as the transitions between the various movements sounded weird to me - not to mention that loud organ chord in the intro! It made me jump on my seat, but rather out of surprise than scare. Thinking some more on it, I have to say that I sometimes get upset (though not really scared) by some music that I can't really understand - such as what is called 'atonal music'. I remember seeing for the first time Kubrick's 2001 and being upset by the "Beyond the infinite" scene, or whatever it's called (i.e. the scene towards the end where Keir Dullea goes through the multicoloured tunnel and ends up in the white room)... not because of the scene itself, but because of the high-pitched choral whines ("Lux æterna" by Ligeti, I think) under it. I found them unsettling. Then, as it happens with everything else, I got used to the whole thing. The middle section of Pink Floyd's "Echoes" has a similar effect on me, and I get relieved when the pinging piano is heard again. @ Dirk & Jim (Scatterplot): Renaissance's "Can you hear me"? Oh, that isn't scary at all to me. The very start sounds like the orchestra swells in the Beatles' "A day in the life" (another classic), and what follows it is just ordinary prog rock to me - sort-of like Orff's Carmina Burana meets Yes. However, I think I'm going to seek out that album. -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

Sir Mustapha Group: Musicians Posts: 2802 Joined: April 2003 Posted: Nov. 19 2008, 19:45 Like Herod, by Mogwai. It's particularly exciting to turn the volume up during the really quiet parts, to pick up all those details. I highly recommend it. -------------- Check out http://ferniecanto.com.br for all my music, including my latest albums: Don't Stay in the City, Making Amends and Builders of Worlds. Also check my Bandcamp page: http://ferniecanto.bandcamp.com Back to top

3Wheeler Group: Members Posts: 828 Joined: Aug. 2007 Posted: Nov. 20 2008, 03:43 De Dum De Dum De Dum just before Jaws eats you is quite scary for regular wave surfers I guess.. lol.. -------------- We're Flying Aeroflot, We've Got Reservations. Back to top

Dirk Star Group: Members Posts: 1331 Joined: Sep. 2007 Posted: Nov. 20 2008, 08:46 [quote=Bassman,Nov. 19 2008, 15:14][/quote] Quote Edited to include:  The Renaissance piece is great, but does the first 3 minutes or so remind anyone else of ELO's "Fire On High"?  That song's intro is a bit scary in itself, though in a sort of corny way.  Still arguably ELO's finest track. Just listened to those two tracks back to back Bassman,and there are definete similarities there I agree.It`s funny I compared Renaissance to both E.L.O. and Yes there earlier.And now since reading some stuff about them online,I`ve discovered that since Renaissance kind of split up in the mid-80`s.Annie Halsam has recorded music with both Roy Wood and Steve Howe. Here`s some Scary Music Literaly wonderful! Back to top

Tubularman Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 2304 Joined: June 2004 Posted: Nov. 20 2008, 10:28 Quote (Ugo @ Nov. 19 2008, 23:30) The middle section of Pink Floyd's "Echoes" has a similar effect on me, and I get relieved when the pinging piano is heard again. i can see that one Also Vangelis track "Heaven and Hell part 2" -------------- Mike Oldfield M i x e s https://soundcloud.com/tubularman Back to top

The Caveman Group: Members Posts: 2178 Joined: Jan. 2008 Posted: Nov. 21 2008, 14:33 I took something interesting was 17 and came up on it while Echoes was playing.When it got to the middle bit with the wailing noises (actually a wah wah pedal plugged in backwards-try it.Sounds like a banshee) in my 'confused' state i felt like i was flying over a graveyard.Scared the sh*t out of me -------------- THE COMING OF THE GREAT WHITE HANDKERCHEIF IS NIGH. Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: Nov. 21 2008, 18:05 I agree with Kay here about the start of H&H Part II - very, very much unsettling, uncanny. Not scary, because, as I repeat, music is never scary to me. @ The Caveman: I always assumed that the wailing on "Echoes" was very high-pitched notes on an electric guitar - played with a slide being pushed well beyond the limits of the fretboard (as Gilmour often does on the pedal-steel). What has the wah-wah pedal got to do with it? AFAIK it doesn't raise the pitch of what you're playing, whether you're plugging it backwards or not...   -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

Sir Mustapha Group: Musicians Posts: 2802 Joined: April 2003 Posted: Nov. 21 2008, 19:01 The few instances of "backwards wah-wah" I know are in two songs by os Mutantes, Dia 36 and Ave Lucifer. They dubbed it "Woh-woh", and it definitely sounds like it. What truly makes the middle portion of Echoes are the whale sounds, which just pick the abstract sonic scape and turn it into something else entirely. -------------- Check out http://ferniecanto.com.br for all my music, including my latest albums: Don't Stay in the City, Making Amends and Builders of Worlds. Also check my Bandcamp page: http://ferniecanto.bandcamp.com Back to top

nightspore Group: Members Posts: 4770 Joined: Mar. 2008 Posted: Nov. 21 2008, 21:01 The scariest music I know of is in Richard Strauss's opera Salome, at the moment when the executioner descends into the cistern to behead John the Baptist, and Salome is listening anxiously for the blow. A close second is Richard Strauss's opera Elektra, where Orestes murders Aegisthus with an axe. Other examples are in Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust, at the moment when Faust signs his soul over to Satan (It's a barely audible sound, but no less terrifying for that), and Mozart's Don Giovanni, where the Don is about to be dragged into hell by the statue of the Commandatore. Back to top

Bassman Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: Feb. 2008 Posted: Nov. 21 2008, 21:42 I think it's fairly certain that classical pieces definitely get the monopoly on what constitutes scary music.  Just by virtue of the fact that, in addition to operatic or choral works whose mandate is often to tell a story, classical pieces are more than likely to be narrative in their structure.  Pop music examples are fewer and farther between.  Like PF's "Echoes", the scare usually comes from longer pieces than what would normally be confined to a 3 minute single.  Anyone else care for a spot of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene"?  The way Rog resurrected that demented scream for the ending of "Run Like Hell" still gives me a big smile every time.  And the kicker is hearing someone (Eugene?) munching contentedly as the last chord dies away. Others that came to mind are various things by Throbbing Gristle or Einsturzende Neubauten.  I used to get such a kick out of seeing peoples' faces when I would put that stuff on back in the 80's! Back to top

nightspore Group: Members Posts: 4770 Joined: Mar. 2008 Posted: Nov. 22 2008, 05:11 You're no doubt right, Bassman. Early Alice Cooper contains some effective fearful pop moments. For example, parts of "Black Juju", "Killer" (the part where the subject of the premature burial wakes and panics trying to escape from the coffin), "Halo of Flies" (where Alice announces, in what must be his nastiest vocal anywhere, that he intends to "smash halo of flies"; and the "Awakening", where the character realises he is is bleeding to death. Back to top

Tubularman Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 2304 Joined: June 2004 Posted: Nov. 22 2008, 08:24 Quote (Ugo @ Nov. 22 2008, 00:05) I agree with Kay here about the start of H&H Part II - very, very much unsettling, uncanny. Not scary, because, as I repeat, music is never scary to me. it is ok to listen this now, but first time i did, i had to skip it   -------------- Mike Oldfield M i x e s https://soundcloud.com/tubularman Back to top

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