Halloween: Spooky Songs On Otherwise Normal Albums

Well, we're in the home stetch of Whiskey Pie's month-long Halloween celebration. All this week I'll have Halloween themed posts, including a special Album of the Week entry that is fairly ambitious (in that, it'll be ambitious for me not to ramble on for 10,000 words).

But today we're going to talk about scary music. I've already done scary movies and scary games (one more post each on those forthcoming, in fact) so it's time I gave music its due beyond the videos I've been posting. Rather than talk about 'scary albums', because I don't own any I think are scary all the way through, I'm going to explore some songs that are surprisingly creepy considering the majority of the rest of the music from the albums they come from is straightforward in comparison.

Aphex Twin- 'Grey Stripe' (a.k.a. track four of the second disc of SAWII)
Actually, Aphex Twin probably deserves some kind of lifetime achievement award for tucking away scary songs on his albums. In the case of Selected Ambient Works Volume II, the order of the day is mostly free floating texture and mood pieces. But 'Grey Stripe' is a terrifying song that sounds like indescribable echoes through deep space and the howls and shrieks of alien lifeforms as they bound through the corridors and ventilation shafts of some haunted space station. It's unsettling and unforgettable.

The Beatles- 'Revolution 9'
I may have told this story on here before, but the first time I listened to The White Album it was on a Fall afternoon. I just happened to put it on to coincide so that, when I got to the side four of the vinyl version, the sun had gone down and it was dark and cold outside. 'Revolution 9' is an infamous piece of musique concrete that most people hate and skip when they listen to the album. I never skip it, but it's still creepy as hell. Even while listening to The White Album with a friend, it leaves you with an eerie feeling that the final song, 'Goodnight', with its Disney-esque majesty, only partially dispels.

Boards of Canada- 'The Devil Is In The Details'
While much of the music and album artwork of Boards of Canada trades on psychedelia and the darker aspects of the 60s, this song takes things a bit further, with a horrifying female voice talking to you over the sounds of a disembodied child crying in reverse (??) and bizarre tape loops. Eeek.

Brian Wilson- 'Mrs. O'Leary's Cow'
So much history has been built up about the Smile album that it's hard to get past it and put this album in the context of 1967 even though it wasn't finished until 2004. Reportedly, while originally recording this album (and going crazy on drugs, naturally) Brian Wilson thought that this song had caused a fire in his area. True or not, 'Mrs. O'Leary's Cow' forms part of the 'Elements Suite' of Smile representing fire--another tale says that Brian Wilson made the band and gathered orchestra put on plastic fire helmets while recording the song. Its title references the cow that--true story--started the great Chicago fire all those years back. It's intense though short, mostly notable because of its supposed historical fire causing and for helping 1967-era Brian Wilson seem even crazier than he already did.

Can- 'Aumgn'
You could probably play this song in a haunted house and get away with it. 'Aumgn' is the most extreme and experimental song that Can ever produced, a 17 minute monolith that is indescribable. Spooky sounds, tape loops, screeching violin, keyboards, free jazz, free noise, scatter shot percussion...and at the heart of it all, Damo Suzuki saying/singing "AAAUUUUUMMMMMMMMGGGGGNNNNNN" over and over, slowed down, stretched out, treated with effects, or brought back and forth in the mix. The whole thing crescendos with a rising synth chord, frenetic tribal drumming, and a whole lot of studio trickery. Mind blowing.

Low- 'Don't Understand'
This is Low at their most gothic and deliberate, slowly building the tension of the spiralling keyboard atmospherics until the primitive death march led by drums kicks in. Then Alan Sparhawk holds a gun to our heads and relates how he doesn't understand while leading us through the woods to the spot where he'll leave our bodies after offing us. At least, that's what I picture in my head when I listen to this song.

The Microphones- '(Something) Cont.'
The Glow Pt. 2 has an otherworldly vibe that I can't explain. You really have to listen to it on headphones to get the full effect, but it traffics in sonic extremes. There are many quiet moments that linger, with barely audible sounds spread throughout, taunting you. Reportedly there are foghorns from boats at various parts of the album though I've only noticed a few. But on the other end of the sonic extreme, there's noisy storms like this that move in and then off like thunder, scaring the shit out of you before another unexpectedly catchy moment of lo-fi indie rock restores you to your senses.

Miles Davis- 'Rated X'
If you didn't know this song was by Miles Davis before listening to it, you would have no idea. It features no trumpet at all and comes from his late-electric era circa 1973/1974, when he would occasionally play atonal organ blasts during live performances to shake up and/or signal transitions to his band. This track, released on a compilation, is spellbindingly crazy, with a pounding drum/bass beat that predicts all manner of beat driven experimental electronic music to come. Over that we are assaulted with churning wah-wah guitar and ear splitting, Phantom Of The Opera-pissed-off-and-high-on-cocaine organ "chords." There's a remix of this track on an album by Bill Laswell that is actually listenable but therefore not scary. If you need a song to clear guests out of your house/apartment at the end of a Halloween party, here you go.

Pere Ubu- 'Thriller!'
No, not that 'Thriller.' This is a spooky instrumental with incomprehensible vocal samples, a slow, stumbling drum beat and guitars lazily detuning and tuning themselves. Eventually, odd scratching/chewing sounds show up and bury the rest of the mix. A very spooky song and one that, if memory serves, ends side one of Dub Housing in an oddly appropriate fashion.

Sonic Youth- 'Providence'
In all fairness, once you read that this song is simply a combination of an overheating amplifier, an answering machine message from Mike Watt, and Thurston Moore plunking away on a piano, it loses some of its power. But like all great double albums, 'Providence' is an anomalous, creepy track that doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the album but sort of does. Anyway, yeah. Spooky.

Sufjan Stevens- 'John Wayne Gacy, Jr.'
The song itself is actually quite pretty, if a bit sad. When you realize he's singing about infamous clown/child murderer John Wayne Gacy, it instantly becomes creepier than anything you've heard that week. Certain lines from this song give me chills and that's because this stuff really happened and is not just some lame ghost story.

Talking Heads- 'The Overload'
Primarily known for being a funky and vibrant album, Remain In Light leaves us with the intense conclusion of 'The Overload', all oppressive atmospherics, David Byrne's monotone delivery, and zombified drums. Phish took this a step further when performing the album live on Halloween '96 by adding an electric drill (!!) and stage antics (including a random crew member saying "where's my coffee?!") that confused the audience.

The Velvet Underground- 'Sister Ray'
Actually, the entirety of the Velvet Underground's second album is crazy and off-the-rails. But 'Sister Ray' brings the built-up tense atmosphere to its inevitable conclusion, rolling up into one 17 minute ball of evil all the drugs, sex, violence, and terror that marked the songs of the Velvets up to that point. The first time I listened to this song I was genuinely frightened of it because I didn't know what to expect. Now, I find it oddly exhilarating. Sometimes it's nice to just let go and become one with your inner nihilist psychotic drug addict.

Captain Beefheart- Lick My Decals Off, Baby

Like a lot of difficult, strange, or abstract music, Captain Beefheart has always been a love-it-or-hate-it proposition. I've officially ran the gamut of reactions to his music--well, the albums I've heard anyway--from "what the hell is this?!" to "is this a joke??" to "joke or not, I like it" to "this is awesome!!" to "do I just like this because I'm drunk??" to "do I just like this because it's so unlike anything else??" to "man, it's funny playing this around people who aren't prepared for it" to "OK, yeah, this is great." I feel like I've spent as much time, if not more time, thinking about his music than I have listening to it. Perhaps that is part of my fascination with it and similar artists like Pere Ubu, Frank Zappa, and Man Man: they force you to reconsider your notions of what is and isn't music, what can and can't be a rhythm or melody, what structure (if any) is necessary, and finally, just how we react to music that piece by piece or all at once subverts our expectations about music.

Lick My Decals Off, Baby is the follow-up to Trout Mask Replica, a nearly mythical album that still astounds and confounds almost 40 years later. Though in my opinion it's not Beefheart's best, Lick My Decals Off, Baby is worthy of similar praise and recognition. Where Trout set the table with an insane mix of avant garde, free jazz, rock, old fashioned blues, and Beefheart's indescribable voice that ranges from low growls to high pitched shrieks, Lick My Decals refines the sound by paring down to a single album and stripping away some of the bizarre instrumentation, while subsequently adding the sublime marimba of Art Tripp. With all of this comes a change in tone: Lick My Decals feels and sounds less playful and absurdist, toughening up and having a more bitter/cynical lyrical bent.

To try to describe the sound of the album is almost impossible. Somewhere between free jazz and late 60s/early 70s rock, Lick My Decals Off, Baby moves from the mindblowing instrumental showcases like 'One Red Rose That I Mean' to the blusey-but-warped 'The Buggy Boogie Woogie' to the frantic freak-outs like 'Doctor Dark' and 'The Clouds Are Full of Wine (not Whiskey or Rye).' You really must experience Captain Beefheart's music for yourself to get what it's all about, because there is very little precedent or basis for comparison.

Therein lies the genius of the album, and the reason you'll either love or hate it. This truly is one of those cases where one man's genius is another man's charlatan. Either Captain Beefheart is an intensely creative person who recorded some of the most sublime and unique music of the 20th century, or he's an overrated trash merchant who people say they like in order to seem cool or ahead of trends. I fall on the pro side of the debate, though almost everyone I know hates him.

On a side note, Lick My Decals Off, Baby is currently out of print on CD. So if you really want to hear this, you'll have to get a record player and track it down. I assure you that if you like Captain Beefheart, it's worth the trouble.

I don't feel as though much more needs to be said about this album. In my estimation it's not as good as Trout Mask Replica, but it's still essential listening for fans of Captain Beefheart, and anyone who enjoys bizarre, experimental music.

Album of the Week: Pere Ubu-Dub Housing

It was bound to happen eventually. I find myself in my local record store and nothing I had come there to find was in stock. Going through the vinyl bins three times I feel compelled to buy something, as I always do when I go there, just to support them. I had heard the name Pere Ubu before, specifically in the Looking For A Thrill DVD that Thrill Jockey put out a few years ago. Anyway, they had Dub Housing in the Punk section and I like to take gambles on music sometimes.

I think I can now relate to how people felt in 1978 when they heard this album because they had little-to-no expectation about it, just as I did. There is very little in music like Pere Ubu--Captain Beefheart is a reference point, but it's also a misleading one. Of all the new wave/post-punk bands I've heard, Pere Ubu is easily the strangest and most interesting at the same time. Within very specific genres certain bands will transcend and make something both of its time and essentially timeless. That is Dub Housing.

Every element of the sound of Dub Housing is essential to its greatness. David Thomas's vocals are impassioned, strained, strange, and deranged. His delivery, cadence, and lyrics are all his own. Guitars chime, clang, and distort to the point of unintelligibility. The bass and drums keep an effectively grooving and cathartic warped playground tempo. The juxtaposition of almost cheesey organ lines with some of the most brilliant, original, and frankly fucked up synthesizer sounds I've ever heard is the lynchpin of the album's sound. Little touches like the sparing use of saxophone and sound effects also add to the bizarre soup of sound.

It's safe to say that songs like 'Drinking Wine Spodyody' and 'Caligari's Mirror' are two of the album's best, so sample these if you're at all curious about this band. The former is one of those songs that shouldn't be catchy but is, with its off kilter, angular playing and vocal tics from David Thomas. 'Caligari's Mirror' borrows from the "what should we do with a drunken sailor" mariner's song to great effect. And I would be doing a disservice to the album if I didn't mention the two instrumentals, 'Thriller!' and 'Blow Daddy-o' which push the band's instruments to their limits, from the psychedelic, backwards guitar of 'Thriller!' to the synthesizer/noise loop that runs throughout 'Blow Daddy-o.'

The true tests of an album's greatness are its longevity and timelessness. And in those regards, Dub Housing is a brilliant piece of art: people are still discovering this band and being influenced by it, and it still sounds both fresh and belonging to no certain era or movement.