electronic all hallows
This week Evil Nine released They Live! – a zombie themed electro record with collaborations with EL-P and others. It’s pretty freakin good, and inspired me to track down a few more Halloween or Horror themed (or at least appropriate in tone) electronic albums in the the spirit of the season.
I guess it certainly makes sense for a band with Evil right there in the name to do a zombie themed record. For this one they drop some of the breaks from the last record in favor of a somewhat more straightforward electro vibe. The grooves seem slower and the synths a little rougher around the edges. The El-P track All the Cash is fantastic, as is the title track. The record also introduced me to autoKratz, a London based elctro duo that I have also been diggin.
Tino’s Breaks – Vol. 6 Hallowe’en Dub
Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto fame’s long running dub series goes spooky. The 16 tracks here are chock full of b-side samples and appropriately Dangerfied deep bass lines. I personally think the best of the Tino Corp stuff appears in part on the Hello Friends! mix, but this is certainly a serviceable party record to serve up with your treats. Check out Wolfman is Everywhere or Zombies walk.
OK so this one isn’t really electronic, but it suits anyway (although the horror movie cover ladden Director’s Cut would have been even more appropriate). Fantômas is a very strange band, and this is a very strange record even by their standards. It consists of one very long track and I believe it where the band members (Patton, Buzzo n crew) imagined surgery wtihout painkiller. Scary. Lots of atmosphere and less speed metal than other outings.
I have been listening/clubbing to a ton of darker dubstep lately. The devilish voices or MC work, giant distorted bass or larger than life pounding drums just seem appropriate to me for this season. I also recommend anything by Distance, iTAL tEK, Vex’d or the recent Scorn record for your dark bass fix. If you need something faster grab the insane Evol Intent 12 inches we have.
Drones – Various
Also a great time for darker ambient music. Shap by Dead Voices on Air has always really creeped me out. Couldn’t go wrong with this Lustmord classic either. Or anything else on this list by eMusic user kamarinda (I suddenly feel very lazy).
Anybody else have any recommendations?
Gravediggaz – 6 Feet Deep would be my first choice, again, not electronic but pretty freakin’ fat hip hop. And sadly not on eMusic (UK at least).
After that, without a doubt, classic A-Grade dub. Scientist – Scientist Rids The World Of The Curse Of The Evil Vampires. Mmwwahhahahaaaa!
I’d second the Gravediggaz’ debut (though I always preferred the non-US album title – Niggamortis (!)).
An independent album that’s not on eMu, but is totally appropriate is Disco Undead, a compilation of electronic reimaginings of the themes to cult 70s/80s horror movies including Cannibal Holocaust, Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Beyond and Suspiria. Highly recommended if you can track it down. It was on Device Recordings, which looks to be defunct now so it might be hard to find, but worth the effort IMHO.
As for eMusic stuff, there’s plenty of classic horror soundtracks such as the back catalogues of John Carpenter, Goblin (and the group they heavily inspired, Zombi), Keith Emerson (2 nice Dario Argento soundtracks anyway), Ennio Morricone, Claudio Simonetti, etc. They’re not all electronic strictly speaking, but there’s plenty of electronic influences among the prog-rockness of some of them. Besides, who wouldn’t want the soundtracks of Halloween, Suspiria, Deep Red (on eMu under the original title Profondo Rosso) and The Fog playing on the night itself?
Thanks for featuring the Evil Nine, I was afraid it was going to go unmentioned. Great album.
2562 – Aerial – is another relatively recent addition for the Dubstep list. Great stuff–not as great as Distance, but as good if not better than iTAL tEK (which I also like a lot). I also feel like Sub Versions is kind of slept on.
Dubstep fans unite! It can be easy to miss albums as they come in, maybe there should be either a regular feature or a rolling thread or something. Lists are awesome, but unfortunately we can’t leave comments.
no one can imagine life without electronics today