Genuinely scary music?

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > Genuinely scary music?

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

There's a lot of music out there that I'd describe as dark and haunting but I struggle to think of any music I'd say is actually "scary" aside from maybe some horror film scores. I recently became aware of Lustmord whose stuff is pretty interesting though at times it might be a stretch to call it "music" per se https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW-ZbEHeICw.

Everyone feel free to post their favorites! Don't be scared. Er, or do be scared I guess.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2023 07:48

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 08:42

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

CJacobs posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIrpLBShe1A

One maybe unexpected genre which immediately came to mind is hip hop. The story told through the lyrics is pure horror and crafted like one. That backing beat is classic Carpenter which is not entirely what you're looking for but there's a reason that sound is so memorable eh??

Bwahaha this one leans a little kitsch but I love it. And yeah some people might not think of hip hop as dark and spooky but it can get there, Mobb Deep comes to mind for me.

Edit: Oh geez this "'96 Neve Campbell" track is putting a big ol' smile on my face https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq-hODfHPf0

# ¿ Jan 19, 2023 08:16

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

CJacobs posted:

YOU'RE SO WELCOME LOL, WHAT A POST/USERNAME COMBO

LMAO I didn't even realize!

# ¿ Jan 19, 2023 08:39

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

CJacobs posted:

Really terrible how Alice Glass was treated, the result though for a while was Crystal Castles became an outlet of pure personal expression for her until she left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As4aai8FfZA
(warning, this one actually is violently loud)

edit: For reference, her latest solo album was co-produced by HEALTH and is directly about her experiences so she's doing well now but it's a heavy listen.

Thanks for your recs and the background info. Music at its base level is all about pattern recognition and that kind of predictability and sense of satisfaction can be at odds with feeling scared - like in the above link, it sounds unsettling until the precise moment the beat kicks in... thing is that's also the moment it starts getting real good!

Similarly, Nine Inch Nails is definitely gloomy, but it's when you free Trent Reznor from having to make a song that it starts sounding "scary." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfpxuJbVaBA

(Could also be because Trent Reznor just doesn't have a scary-sounding voice)

# ¿ Jan 19, 2023 08:51

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

the Bunt posted:

there's also an album i'm actually trying to find again. it was entirely just long-form samples of news clips or interviews or various audio recordings of people describing horrible violent traumas, stuff like 911 calls and poo poo, but completely removed from their individual contexts. so it is just this unrelenting miasma of human terror. it was made in the 80s or even the 70s, compiled and packaged as a musical album, which is what made it stand out to me amongst the modern day landscape of 911 Call Compilations on Youtube. I swear it was called "Victims" or something, but i'm having a hell of a time finding it again

Jesus this sounds terrifying.

Sampling spoken word clips might be borderline cheating but it can definitely be effective. Three 6 Mafia (under the name "Prophet Posse") once sampled the intro to Scream (I swear I'm not just thinking about Scream 24/7) and at first it seems pretty kitschy but as it goes on and you keep hearing muffled crying of Drew Barrymore in the background you start disassociating it from the film and it just becomes a woman being menaced over the phone and it becomes unsettling if you let it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufqca0ALD_8

# ¿ Jan 19, 2023 09:30

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

drat you goons are hardcore! Some good creepy poo poo.

Trying to think of an example that is obviously "musical" throughout, one I think qualifies is the Giygas music at the end of Earthbound, partly because it gives the impression of a bunch of sound effects that just happen to be in rhythm and harmony with each other.

(My favorite segment on loop): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0H8-QzjTeY

(The whole sequence): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYb9kSCkjE8

# ¿ Jan 19, 2023 09:58

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

Mister Speaker posted:

A composer and a luthier got together to take some of the concepts of the Waterphone (a dissonant instrument popular in horror film soundtracks and The Matrix), and some other creepy things, and make a novel and unsettling instrument: The Apprehension Engine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_90hjuduWZ0

I actually really want one, it would be awesome to have something like this in a live electronic music setup. Extremely my poo poo. And I just discovered the luthier lives here in Toronto, and a friend of mine might know him really well. :O

"The Apprehension Engine" is one killer name. The low tones remind me of the Blaster Beam used most famously in the early Star Trek movies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u24aSJFUioE&t=57s

# ¿ Jan 19, 2023 10:46

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

Wizard Master posted:

A lot of songs off Soundtracks for the Blind by Swans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIajxtdRhEA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEJ4RwRcs9o

The links weren't working for me for some reason, I found some alternates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3saNjIBPmzI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHKl41ogfO0

# ¿ Jan 19, 2023 10:48

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

Man, this is all some scary poo poo! Pretty cool, but for those that need a little break, here's a nice tranquil and soothing piece for you before we get back to the ghoulish audiophile fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k-eOK8iqDM

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 00:45

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

sigher posted:

Serious post, this track from the Godzilla 2014 Soundtrack is loving haunting, it's legit a whole horror film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xuVdc477hw. For more cacophonous crescendos the ones in A Day in the Life by The Beatles unnerve me.

This sounded REALLY familiar and so I followed up on that "Additional themes by Gy�rgy Ligeti" credit in the description and found that it indeed interpolates a composition by Ligeti ("Requiem," I believe) that was also used in all the monolith scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU4Rk0NATNs

Star Trek II also did a pretty cool riff on it :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAv6tgg1ps0

Here's some more of Ligeti's material used in 2001, which also qualify for this thread! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2o83cSYTpg

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 03:22

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

Ibexaz posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O5Px3_RJ3w

This one always stuck in the back of my mind, nowadays I think it's exploitative and in incredibly bad taste (wow the band name is the german term for a PoW camp with the letters G.H added at the end, standing for Global Holocaust. So thoughtful! After finishing 3 albums they renamed the project to GULAGGH. Deep commentary!)

From my understanding the members are an anonymous collection of Dutch black metal artists or whatever and they use audio from patients in psychiatric hospitals. Per their page on Discogs:

"According to interviews they used these vocalists because they wanted "the pain and hatred in the vocals to be real and not acted".
They call their 'music': 'Misanthropik Nihilistik Audio-Terrror'"

I don't think there's anything worth celebrating here, but the "authenticity" of it all really stuck with 14 year me. I remember showing it to a classmate in drama class once when he asked me for dark songs. He would lock himself in the janitors closet with the lights off blasting this on his ipod on repeat for at least 30 minutes on show nights to help him get into character (He played the devil in a 5 minute sketch about finding Jesus, his part of the sketch was like 45 seconds long, and his role had no lines)

This starts out irritating, then the more it goes on it becomes funny in spite of itself, and then it goes on so long that it's no longer funny anymore and it really is effectively disturbing, then after that it gets irritating again, and then it's gone on for so long that it becomes funny again, and on and on...

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 03:29

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

sigher posted:

Holy poo poo, I never made the connection and I love 2001. Thank you for this post.

My pleasure! I actually hesitated before posting cuz I thought it might come off smartalecky, like "lol that music you like is a ripoff" (even if so, it's not like it was original in 2001 or Star Trek either). Glad to help!

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 12:01

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

Tim Whatley posted:

Also this as a kid. I feel like it got used in lots of 90s movie trailers

https://youtu.be/IyFpZ5MZ7kk

I recall this one a lot in the 90s, too, though it was always strictly wondrous for me, like entering a cave of magic crystals or something.

Though now that you mention it, it does seem a bit deceptive, like it's a cave that'll set off a booby trap if I foolishly touch one of those magic crystals...

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 12:46

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

Sourdough Sam posted:

ELO's Fire On High freaked me out as a kid when I heard it on a classic rock radio station. This song starts horrifying then gets awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22Ndi2HUheg

This reminds me how the beginning of that 70s "Dream Weaver" song always creeped me out as a kid. It sounds like Jamie Lee Curtis has just discovered the bodies of all her murdered friends or something.

Then the rest of the song is, well, it's not as scary.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 16:21

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

flubber nuts posted:

some of that aphex twins music is sort of spooky like the grass and the trees.

check out The Night Monitor for extended spooky vibes. a newish project by neil scrivin with a pretty big back catalog at this point. they use real world paranormal events as inspiration. the first album This House Is Haunted is a good place to start, legitimately spooky stuff.

https://youtu.be/ffLx3K0f-vc

Nice, I like how direct this one is. It's definitely going for "scary" first and foremost instead of something like existential dread or "let's explore the dark side of humanity" or some such.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 19:04

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

Cabbages and Kings posted:

am I allowed to post my own poo poo of questionable quality??

https://soundcloud.com/suboptimal-synthesis/23-01-10-a-bad-dream-i-guess

Sure! No one said it had to be good (and for what it's worth, I didn't think it was bad), just scary.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2023 18:22

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

XYZAB posted:

Disappointed it's taken three pages to get to this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnuq9PXbywA

��✂��

It's really cool and it's a classic and all but nobody ever actually thought it was scary.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2023 19:02

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 08:42

SidneyIsTheKiller: Jul 16, 2019; I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...

uber_stoat posted:

saw the title and was like "time to post Lustmord!" whoops lmao

gonna do it anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6zhuFAoC6Y

Lustmord actually has a fairly deep catalog, so go ahead and keep posting him if you so desire!

Someone upthread mentioned the "It was the night of the demon..." track so here 's a link. It's one of his goofier tracks IMO but it's a fun listen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt6RIdqwWpU

# ¿ Jan 23, 2023 05:43

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > Genuinely scary music?