Songs Of Discomposure: Quietus Writers Pick Their Most Disturbing Pieces Of Music

came here for ligeti, was not disappointed

fave would be VVM, most disturbing has to be Suicide.

first encounter with ligeti was at about eight years old, being absolutely shit-scared of the sounds and images coming out of the tv showing 2001

it's still probably the most eerie music i've ever heard

Hmmm, I don't find Ligeti disturbing tbh. Or much else on that list. No Throbbing Gristle?

Though I'm probably not very reliable on what constitutes disturbing music.

What I like about the list is that it's a mix of music that is sonically disturbing (Galas, Today Is The Day etc) and songs like Aaliyah's where it's the story behind the song that makes it disturbing.

Sucker for Subjectivisten lists though obv.

Hmmm, I don't find Ligeti disturbing tbh.

the choir in requiem sounds like the wordless suffering of damned souls in hell to my imagination, but i'm willing to concede that early exposure to 2001 might have left some psychological scars

same thing happened with jeff lynne's war of the worlds tbh (shut up)

Frankie Teardrop almost got me into a car accident once.

it's what rev and vega would have wanted

first few seconds of the original Wipeout by The Surfaris is the first thing that ever really disturbed me on a record. there's something really 'off' for kids about non-genuine-laughter.

That V/VM album is a classic

xp "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" gave me nightmares as a kid after hearing it on some K-tel 'Goofy Greats' comp.

Frankie Teardrop almost got me into a car accident once.

hah, ditto. I was driving home from work on an icy highway in the middle of a snowstorm, which in itself puts you on edge, then, listening to this for the first time...

Didn't see it at first but hard not to go for 'The Boiler' (only heard it for the first - and probably last - time this year).

Torn between Butthole Surfers, Khanate and Rhoda Dakar.

should have gone with Songs of Disquietude

Poor Old Horse is disturbing because it's so funny, right? And then you realise what you've been laughing at? Great song but a slightly weird choice here

Strange Fruit

Love the description of our very own DL about Scott Walker's The Escape: ‘The man behind the dumpster’ of musical moments.

I could have gone for Strange Fruit, The Escape or the Khanate album (the latter for personal reasons) but voted Kristallnacht.

That Gnaw Their Tongues fella tries too hard and his stuff comes across as OTT and silly rather than genuinely disturbing imo

No Penderecki no credibility

While I think Vibing Up the Senile Man marks a surprise turn in Alternative TV's music, I don't really find it disturbing, just unexpected if you've come to it after hearing previous Alternative TV stuff.

Actually, I agree with Tom D. - there's not much here that I find disturbing.

I guess it depends on what disturbs the listener most. When I was younger the Residents' cover of "Satisfaction" was the most disturbing song I knew. I also didn't like Frank Zappa's antisemitism-with-kazoos tune Jewish Princess. More recently I'm disturbed by Full Body Anchor, which seems to express the despair at the core of my being. There's "Babble" by Krause and Coyne about the Moors Murderers, humanity at its most twisted.

White rock musicians disturb me most. She's A Jar, by Wilco. Sensitive indie ballad with twist domestic violence ending. Nasty song.

And then there's "Polly" by Nirvana. There's an extra dose of futility to this one. Lunkheads took this horror song and used it as a template for rape. Cobain encouraged them to kill themselves, but if they did, Kurt killed himself first. No point in art. No point in communication. Not with people like that, and there are more people like that than we can ever believe. That's pretty disturbing.

where's parallelograms by Perhacs?

where's parallelograms by Perhacs?

Really? I can't possibly think of how that would be disturbing. Crazy beautiful? Sure. But disturbing how?

'22 Going On 23' is horrific, even thinking about that song makes me feel like crying

My pick would have been "Disturbance" by The Move.

b-side of "Night Of Fear", trust me, it's scary when yr a 10 year old buying 2nd hand singles at jumble sales.

Actually, I agree with Tom D. - there's not much here that I find disturbing.

... apart from that Donald Duck thing on the Scott Walker track.

I did the Scott Walker entry on this, but it's a great list and some nicely written accounts from lots of different perspectives. What other music would Ilxors add to this?

Ween, "Mourning Glory". Something to do with it being about pumpkins and not serial killers or whatever.

List needs something by Throbbing Gristle, my pick would have been "Hamburger Lady".

Of the songs I know, I thought the oddest choice was the selected Magnetic Fields song. The accompanying text simply writes it down as disturbing for describing pain (of the emotional/romantic kind) in a relatable way. By that criterium a whole lot of songs would qualify as being disturbing, perhaps the Beatles 'For No One' more than anything.

I'd be thinking more of darker themed, sinister songs, though.

The song that first came to my mind was Tom Waits' 'What's he building?', along with its video.

Then there's Nick Cave: Song of Joy. Someone seeks shelter at an inn, tells about his family being murdered, nothing known about the killer except that he leaves John Milton quotes on the walls with the blood of his victims. The man ends his story with a Milton quote before asking for a room.

Ed Sheeran singing about what his bedsheets smell like

xxp came here to write-in hamburger lady

Peter Gabriel, Intruder. (and I'm a Butthole Surfers/Coil fan.)

Couple more I'd have included:

Autechre - Bine, which soundtracked the closest thing I've had to a night terror / panic attack
Jacques Brel - Les Bonbons, whose protagonist is an oleaginous creep, bringing his (ostensibly under-aged) paramour gifts of sweets, because they're 'so much nicer than flowers'

Klaus Nomi doing Cold Song on TV while already ill

John Cale, Fear

Jacques Brel - Les Bonbons, whose protagonist is an oleaginous creep, bringing his (ostensibly under-aged) paramour gifts of sweets, because they're 'so much nicer than flowers'

Oh, I'd never realized before what this song was about, he always seemed to be playing it for laughs. There's a David Ackles song about a cripple who owns a sweet shop who takes his revenge on the people who mock him by hiding pornography in their children's sweets, that's pretty creepy. Another particularly disturbing 'singer-songwriter' song is Randy Newman's "In Germany Before the War", you don't really want to think about what's going on in that song.

In Germany Before the War is p much a variant on M/Tenderness of Wolves

"patricia" by doc corbin dart too, probably.

Brel is definitely 'in character' during that song. As with most of his songs, it's down to interpretation, and the interpretation is my own but it makes sense to me.

Here's a translation I found online (it's not great, a little too literal):

I've brought you some sweets
Cause flowers are perishable
And sweets are so nice
Although flowers look more presentable
Especially when they're in bud
But I've brought you some sweets
I hope we can go for a walk
That your mother won't mind
We'll watch the trains go by
I'll bring you back at eight o'clock
What a nice Sunday it is for the season
I've brought you some sweets
If you knew how proud I am
To see you Hung on my arm
People look askance at me
Some of them even laugh behind my back
The world is full of naughties
I've brought you some sweets
Oh yes! Germaine's not as nice as you
Oh yes! Germaine's Less pretty
It's true that Germaine has auburn hair
It's true that Germaine is cruel
Oh, you're absolutely right
I've brought you some sweets
So here we are on the Grand' Place
They're playing Mozart at the kiosk
But tell me isn't that by any chance
That your friend Léon is over there
If you want me to step aside
I had brought you some sweets
Oh, good morning Miss Germaine
I've brought you some sweets
Cause flowers are perishable
And sweets are so nice
Although flowers look more presentable

I think NWW is a fair shout here, although more on a level that it plays games in a slightly queer fashion rather than being str8 up disturbing.

I haven't heard everything on the list but by far the most harrowing thing here is 'The Boiler' - like the blurb's writer I first heard it on a 2-Tone compilation, I must've been about 12? I was aware of the Specials as a band who wrote about real life in a kind of direct way but nothing prepared me for that. I've maybe heard it once or twice again since, that first listen really did stay with me. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title.

To be honest the only recordings I can think of that ever properly shat me up are The Conet Project, The Ghost Orchid and the epilogue from War of the Worlds and none of those can qualify as music.

I would've picked Scott Walker's "The Electrician" as genuinely disturbing.

Also, there's a Selector song about a woman getting raped...

Are you thinking of "The Boiler"? If so, it's on the list. It was on 2-Tone, but not by The Selecter.

Yeah, The Boiler is on this list. One of the few songs I have to be careful about playing (if I ever play it) in mixed company.

LBI - "parallelograms" is disturbing to me in that it's like a siren song to bring one into a void or a heavy bad trip. It's gorgeous though

maresnest otm, the conet project is genuinely unsettling

Obviously it's influenced by the revelations about his behavior but I find a lot John Phillips's "John the Wolf King of LA" disturbing - the unrelenting mellow tunefulness with occasional suggestions that something awful is going on (esp "Let it Bleed Genevieve"). It sounds like someone who's just so constantly fucked up that he's oblivious to the fact that he's become a sociopathic junkie.

Parallelograms has been kind to me on weed, Ross :)

Hearing 'Automatic Writing' by Robert Ashley on the radio when my guard was down was a very unsettling experience, but that wasn't recreated the second time I willfully put it on.

With things like Coil, Current 93 (the girl screaming DEAD on 'All the pretty horses' gave me a right scare) and NWW, you pretty much know what you are going to get though. The surprise disturbance appeals more to me, narrative wise. Where you least expect it. Or, in Scott Walker's case, unthinkably whack.

uh what radio station was that

I forgot about The Conet Project, I have that stuff on my computer which means I've got about 5 hours of number towers recordings that I barely listen to but don't want to get rid of either. The worst part is that people sample it fairly often, so that stuff could pop up in your music collection at any point. It took me a while but I eventually noticed a Conet Project sample on a Plus-Tech Squeezebox song of all things, which was a real oh shit moment.

Lol, deserved question. A Dutch classical station that had an experimental avant-garde show on Sunday night for two hours. I was driving a van moving to a new house when a student. I didn't know they had this show on Sunday night, thought it was all just classical. It was crazy. But lead to me listening to it religiously for years (it's now defunct).

xp

can't think of too many songs that freak me out to the point where I never want to listen to them but Ween's "Spinal Meningitis" is one, which is strange b/c I remember someone telling me that they thought that song was hilarious in how cruel it was

"Devil's Triangle" by King Crimson always used to do it though. it sounds like the mellotron is being butchered as it goes on. man were they able to coax some ugly sounds out of that thing.

Listening to 22 Going On 23 is a good way to get a taste of what being clinically depressed feels like if you've never experienced it

can't think of too many songs that freak me out to the point where I never want to listen to them but Ween's "Spinal Meningitis" is one, which is strange b/c I remember someone telling me that they thought that song was hilarious in how cruel it was

It was probably on ILM, I remember discussing that song before. I don't think that song is disturbing or hilarious or (wtf) cruel fwiw.

Slapp Happy - Freedom

(with that spine destroying scream)

possibly more cathartic than disturbing though

*art bears i mean

How many songs have proper jump scares? Like that horrible scream at the end of The Cure's Subway Song.

xxxp nah it was a friend of mine who is probably even more into Ween than I am. it's a polarizing tune but they play it every show so I guess their fans mostly like it.

How many songs have proper jump scares?

"Cautious Lip" by Blondie. Debbie's scream caught me unawares a few times.

am brainstorming this. will also listen to these choices and vote, eventually

Immortal Technique - Dance With The Devil
Foetus - Kreibabe (tt: "This isn't disturbing, this is just edgy crap!")
Murcof - Oort (you want jump scares? you want COSMIC jump scares?)
KTL - Theme
R.D. Laing - Eleven
Judy Henske & Jerry Yester - Farewell
Portishead - Half Day Closing
The Cure - The Drowning Man
Giles Corey - The Haunting Presence

A couple from this year:

Jute Gyte - Oviri (the track)
Bedwetter aka Lil Ugly Mane - Haze Of Interference (his track Intent And Purulent Discharge as LUM from 2015 was also terrifying)

> How many songs have proper jump scares?

pale saints - colour of the sky
mercury rev - that early, long b-side of car wash hair.

How many songs have proper jump scares?

the Peel session version of Everybody Is Dead by Microdisney (which, unlike the album version, ends with Cathal Coughlan screaming "I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU") nearly gave me a heart attack the first time I heard to it (via ipod headphones, half asleep on a bus travelling to work at about 6.30 in the morning)

https://youtu.be/gnbbG4Pd-0U

that sudden jarring fanfare on Into the Night by Julee Cruise on the Twin Peaks soundtrack album made me jump a few times

there's a proper horrible jump scare at the end of The Cure's Subway Song.

I suppose I'm not easily disturbed. There is a style of music that is made up of high-pitched electronic sounds that is very painful for me to listen to. I believe a lot of the artists or musicians are from Japan. I tried Googling the genre to no avail.

I actually quite like The Tower Recordings and some mid-tone noise and ambient, I find it oddly relaxing. It's the extreme frequencies and pitches that I find very painful and, therefore, disturbing.

Also, sliding up and down octaves and pitches very fast and often is also slightly painful or disturbing to my ears (e.g., Penderecki, Stockhausen, etc.).

Good jump scare on the Swans 'Blind Love' off Children of God iirc

There's a weird Exorcist or something parody at the end of Brad's Shame which put the shits up me the first time I heard it, dropping off to sleep.

Is "the sound of space" the same user as "the tune is space" ie D.D.?

holy shit daredevil is an ilxor?

pj harvey "Taut"

"even the son of God had to die my darrrrrrlin"

"You Better Run" by Junior Kimbrough

Le Bateau Ivre, I don't know the user "the tune is space" or D.D.

So, unless he or she has magically possessed my body or keyboard without my knowledge, it's fairly safe to say I am not that user.

Pre- the escape, the cockfighter was the scott walker jump scare tune

Comparison of the former with the man behind winkies is a good one for a few reasons inc daftness and the capacity to unsettle even after multiple listens/watches when you know what's coming

don't get why 'the escape' over 'clara'

the donald duck voice surely

Obviously.

the escape song is weird because Donald Duck is saying something Bugs Bunny says, accompanied by wrangled slide FX that sound imported from Looney Tunes

I listened to that song today because I'm not that familiar with that album but I knew there was a song with Donald Duck on it and I thought "The Escape" was probably it - I still almost leapt out of my chair.

'clara' is the better & more disturbing piece imo but i shan't list its virtues

It doesn't have Donald Duck on it though.

I think Clara is a better song overall but that bit in The Escape is more terrifying.

No Penderecki?

The Cockfighter is great too and always reminds me of this post of yore:

uh, the first time i listened to Scott Walker's "Tilt" was with my friend whose last musical obsession was Bobby McFerrin. after enduring all his "what is this shit?" and "This sounds like The Phantom of the Opera on crack" comments during the first track, i convinced him to give at least the next track "the cockfighter" a shot. anyway, after turning the volume way up during the first minute or so of indescript mumbling and shuffling noises, we were then blown away by the screaming locust wall of yell and chaos around a minute and a half. we both started screaming, the car started swerving, we almost got into an accident, we had to pull over, and i was never allowed to put another cd on in his car.

― methanie tanner (methanie tanner), Wednesday, September 27, 2006 3:45 AM (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I suppose I'm not easily disturbed. There is a style of music that is made up of high-pitched electronic sounds that is very painful for me to listen to. I believe a lot of the artists or musicians are from Japan. I tried Googling the genre to no avail.

Onkyo! - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkyokei. Can be quite painful, although nowhere near Maryanne Amacher levels. Speaking of which, she gets my vote for actually giving me a panic attack while listening to her Tzadik CD on headphones, due to the frequencies making my inner ear oscillate in an unexpected manner. I forget which piece it was and haven't dared listen again.

this hilarious one was always my favorite from the extreme music comp:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdTS7YDvLBY

didn't know it was its own genre though.

"need" from kathy heideman's "move with love" also seems disturbing to me

vibing up the senile man is pretty awesome, just dudes shouting and ranting against "eerie" noises and stuff

the Maurizio Bianchi stuff I heard on Spotify was excellent, just these reverberating muffled explosion sounds bouncing around, cool as hell

lol I was gonna post my anecdote about The Cockfighter but I see Gavin has already quoted a post I did about it 11 years ago. nice.

100% I think the work of modernist/micropolyphonicists like Ligeti and Penderecki is meant to be religious, that is, comfort music, I'm always amazed at when like Lynch uses this music as a signifier for "DISTURBING!" because the collection of pure acoustic pitches and sound walls just feels to me like gazing into a telescope or reading about Calvinism

Similarly, even though Scott Walker set out to create The Most Disturbing Recorded Piece Of Music Ever with "The Escape"-- and he succeeded-- I don't find anything particularly disturbing about the goosebumps and scare-moments that that song has and will still elicit, it's the aural equivalent of a perfect horror movie and there is nothing disturbing about a piece of music that successfully elicits the emotional sensations the author has attempted to elicit, even if those emotions are "fear"

Surprised that Berg isn't on this list, the final couple scene of Wozzeck are the best examples of "music designed to disturb"

Frankie Teardrop to me is just like a fun roller coaster wheeeee my emotions

What disturbs me I guess is music that makes the very act of music-making and music-listening seem cultureless, and futile, an extension of nationalistic jingoism (patriotic country music), co-opting of political text (nu Katy Perry), exhibitions of laziness-as-depth or personal-anecdote-as-artist-statement (William Basinski)

The most disturbing piece of music in my world is Cat Stevens' "Wild World" I think, or maybe "Party In The USA" or something from Rent. Of this list, I'm voting Magnetic Fields "I Thought You Were My Boyfriend" for the big lie that is that band, and how depressed it makes me about homosexuality and gay culture and New York City and money.

The most disturbing piece of music I've ever encountered was a 2nd-year composition student who was telling me about a piece he'd had performed where one of the movements in this otherwise straightforward non-postmodern exercise was free of content, that the 4th movement was simply left blank, and he was telling me about this piece and it was horrifying to view the expectation of a reaction on his face, and made me feel awful about the musicians he'd had to have put through that ordeal

Oh also Schnittke "Symphony #1" because that asshole wanted to "reconcile pop music and serious music if it killed him" and so he assembled a collection of vignettes of the entire history of 20th century music to be performed by a symphony in a concert hall, removing all history and context of all these genres and museum-ing them for a starched and seated crowd, that is the death of everything I've enjoyed in life and if Alfred wasn't dead I'd probably murder him for making a piece as disturbing and misguided and sociopathic as that piece of music

when it comes to the john phillips thing of "songs by musicians who also happened to be genuinely wicked people", there's bruce haack's "haackula". maybe he wasn't a child molester but whatever he did people aren't willing to talk about, and whenever stuff like that happens i just wind up assuming "child molester", especially since "haackula" is a really messed up album. graham bond was also a child molester, but none of his satan stuff like "love is the law" comes off as evil or disturbing or anything like that, and i think it's a mistake to draw too close an association there. like people think gesualdo's music is "disturbing" because he butchered his wife (actually he made his servants do most of the work, which is a little bit more disturbing than if he'd killed her personally), but from what i can tell it's more that the diatonic system wasn't established yet and that freaks people out.

when i first heard the last couple scenes of "wozzeck" i just thought it was badass. but i was much younger then.

i'm not disturbed by schnittke's first symphony, i just don't like it. i guess i'd be more disturbed if it worked. i like his "concerto for choir" all right.

Oh god Schnittke makes me want to find a job vacuuming up the ashes of human remains, I hate him so much. Conductor solos? A sophomoric knowledge of How Harmony Works so that all his pomo bullshit is not just evil, but badly made also? The fact that every string quartet in the world stans for his bullshit non-pomo work and talk about him to impress you? I want to die

I'm meditating right now breathing in "Charles" and breathing out "Ives" because I need some respite rn

100% I think the work of modernist/micropolyphonicists like Ligeti and Penderecki is meant to be religious, that is, comfort music, I'm always amazed at when like Lynch uses this music as a signifier for "DISTURBING!" because the collection of pure acoustic pitches and sound walls just feels to me like gazing into a telescope or reading about Calvinism

otm

rushomancy also otm re: bruce haack

Peter Blegvad - Irma

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wn-qyDlcPY

It's like living inside Catherine Deneuve's head in Repulsion

Voted for Donald Duck.

what are the stories around haack?

I have never heard any of these Haack stories either

I mostly get irritated by "disturbing" so I'm not the best judge for this stuff but someone preferring Simone to Holiday on Strange Fruit is just baffling. Everything genuinely gut-wrenching in Holiday's version gets turned into this cartoon version of horror by Simone.

Matt #2, yes, that's the one! Thank you!

I always considered myself an adventurous music listener but that's where I draw the line. I don't even want to listen to one of those musicians to confirm it really is that genre. Too painful! I have visited the ENT and have what I think is a strong understanding of what is going on with my hearing and ears. Because of my involvement in music for most of my life, I have developed a very sensitive ear to a very broad range of frequencies, so even day to day sounds are a little jarring if they hit the right range. It's a gift and a curse.

Someone mentioned Berg. I find his music quite playful and wonderful, actually, but not something I can listen to in long periods because I get listener fatigue from it. I think it's because my brain is trying to reorganize the tones into a particular structure or a form it previously knows but can't find it due to the nature of Berg's pieces.

Penderecki's Threnody, on the other hand, does seem "catastrophic," as he describes it, and just filled with terror to me.

when it comes to "apocalyptic" classical karel husa's "apotheosis of this earth" hits me hardest

the point about haack is that there _are_ no stories anybody tells. it's all just hints and innuendo. people say that he was a troubled man who really loved children. there's an obvious conclusion statements like that (both obviously correct) lead me to, and if that conclusion is wrong, nobody who would know seems to have an interest in _saying_ it's wrong.

There are some really good suggestions above but then there are some really good suggestions on our list as well, even if most of our list doesn't leave me with horripilation myself. I can't speak to what other people find disturbing - it's too much of a subjective issue. For example I find nearly all power electronics and harsh wall noise either irritating or mildly funny but I get why other people might feel differently - it's not that great a leap of the imagination.

However I did pick Richard Dawson's Poor Old Horse and will defend my choice.

As I said in the capsule, it's nothing to do with the violence meted out to the nag compared to how funny it is and any feelings of self-disgust this may inspire but the sense of disquietude that seeps out during the final verse (“Now each he goes his separate path/ For a cup full of ale or a nice hot bath/ A kiss on the lips of a wife newly wed/ Or a look at the baby sleeping in bed.”) The song is ostensibly about three men beating a horse to death but it's also about the violence of men in general and how this affects their families and how it's passed on from each generation to the next. I think there are certain groups of people that have very specific first hand experiences of violence which may make this song resonate with them in a way it doesn't with other listeners (regardless of their feelings about man on horse violence).

There was a lot of talk between Luke and I in the office concerning TG. Both of us toyed with including them but *generally speaking* we find their music to have too much of a humorous aspect. I think Hamburger Lady is a grotesque song and worthy of inclusion in such a list... I probably would have gone for Very Friendly over it though, which has a specific resonance to people, like me, who were children growing up in England in the 1970s - Ian Brady underwent testing at the Scott Clinic on the grounds of Rainhill Psychiatric Hospital about a mile away from where I grew up and I was always aware of these people without really understanding what the Moors Murderers had done. Now there's a lot of humour in Coil as well but both of us would rep for them as making disturbing music over TG simply because of specific autobiographical details. The pair of Musick To Play In The Dark albums might strike a lot of people as being the very antithesis of disturbing music ("Whoooooo! Scary arboreal synth music!") But a track like 'Ether' puts the fear of God into me precisely because it speaks directly to some of my experiences of chronic alcoholism in a very visceral and terrifying way - however I wouldn't necessarily expect other people to feel the same way. I've never been a victim of third degree burns or met anyone who has been so Hamburger Lady has less of a grip on me despite being obviously quite a tough listen.

ok, now this is fucked up. i mean, you know, internet. but i google "hamburger lady" and this comes up:

http://www.scaryforkids.com/hamburger-lady/

i know the kids love creepypasta and so on, but what the hell kind of sick fuck is suggesting that children should listen to "hamburger lady"?

John, I started this thread wholly because I loved the idea and execution of it on tQ. And also because the question invites very open and diverse answers. For that - and not just for that, but today specifically for that - I applaud what tQ does and continues to do. It's subjective, it's inviting, it dodges usual suspects. It inspires and invokes.

Just want to say that to you/tQ, regardless of this thread.

What disturbs me I guess is music that makes the very act of music-making and music-listening seem cultureless, and futile, an extension of nationalistic jingoism (patriotic country music), co-opting of political text (nu Katy Perry), exhibitions of laziness-as-depth or personal-anecdote-as-artist-statement (William Basinski)

Sorry, are you really saying that Katy Perry's recent performatively woke material actually "disturbs" you? Because I'm going to need a bit more justification to back that up. Which political text is she co-opting in 'Chained To The Rhythm' and why is it dangerous?

Le Bateau Ivre - well, hot damn! That's a fine thing for you to say, thanks! They don't *always* come off as well these features - the guilty pleasures one was arguably a misstep even - but I was very happy with this one.

that lisa germano one with the the scary phone message on it used to shake me up. ugh. i could have used a trigger warning when i bought that album.

that album is a genuinely disturbing work of art. in my opinion. it goes to a lot of dark places that a lot of those bondage-loving noize boyz could never attempt to go.

@ scott yes that is a disturbing album, mostly for me for the recurring "comic relief" pseudo-klezmer moments that keep coming back and just make me feel like I'm having an episode

@ CaAL can't tell you what texts "Chained To The Rhythm" is co-opting but yes yes the adoption of anti-bourgeois sentiment turned into a generalized railing against "dance music spaces" (?) I guess (?) availability of living spaces (?) I guess (?) for the purposes of capital accumulation of Katy Perry Inc. is inherently dangerous, absolutely dangerous, deeply cynical, are you joking? I hear Diamanda Galas screaming Hebrews and I feel like "this woman has my back". Katy Perry would eat me for dinner

I totally forget what it sounds like, but there was an album called "Kaddish" by a group called Towering Inferno that Eno branded "the most frightening record I have ever heard."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaddish_(Towering_Inferno_album)

third ear band. had a reaction similar to whoever did the write-up

100% I think the work of modernist/micropolyphonicists like Ligeti and Penderecki is meant to be religious, that is, comfort music, I'm always amazed at when like Lynch uses this music as a signifier for "DISTURBING!" because the collection of pure acoustic pitches and sound walls just feels to me like gazing into a telescope or reading about Calvinism

Really enjoying this take (although, heh, the piece was called Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima tbf). I tried to say something similar about guitar noise in indie rock in a pop music class at York (and was only being semi-challopsy) and the prof had everyone explain to me how I was deluding myself.

Third Ear Band album just makes me think of Keith Chegwin.

I still have that Towering Inferno record, it's pretty great but I wouldn't call it frightening exactly. The multimedia show that went with it was incredible.

xps

Fgti bringing the heat to this thread.

@ Sund4r, can't back this up but I was told by my comp prof that Penderecki rather cynically admitted to simply tacking on that title!

And yeah, I had similar discussions w my profs about noise and its function. Interestingly I think the ear's relationship to dissonance changes over time. I may have said this elsewhere, but at age 18 I found Stockhausen impenetrable. Now, it's my comfort music. The only thing I've ever heard which was so dissonant that I had to turn it off (and I've never actually got through it) is Ventolin

Fwiw, it's true that the original title was 8'37", which Penderecki changed after the piece had already been performed. I wonder if it was a legend among composition profs of a certain generation that Penderecki admitted to tacking on the title as some sort of cynical marketing/promotional move. I heard it from my undergrad prof too but I haven't found a convincing source for it. In The Rest Is Noise, Ross did write that [Communist Polish] "officialdom only took a favourable view" of the piece after someone suggested the new title, though he makes no suggestion that Penderecki intentionally did this to curry favour with the authorities. Auner just writes that it reflected Penderecki's ongoing interest in connecting his music to political and social issues.

the third ear band is interesting because i don't listen to the macbeth soundtrack that much - i listen to their first album and "the magus", which are very different albums and excellent albums but neither of which i would term "disturbing". i just think of them as the best raga-rock band. but that title track is indeed pretty disturbing; should probably give the whole thing a listen.

i have a copy of "kaddish" somewhere. it mainly came off as "arty british record about the holocaust". which is fine and all but i don't know what precisely it adds to our collective understanding of that event.

"The boiler" lyrically
Either Residents or V/VM musically.

@ CaAL can't tell you what texts "Chained To The Rhythm" is co-opting but yes yes the adoption of anti-bourgeois sentiment turned into a generalized railing against "dance music spaces" (?) I guess (?) availability of living spaces (?) I guess (?) for the purposes of capital accumulation of Katy Perry Inc. is inherently dangerous, absolutely dangerous, deeply cynical, are you joking? I hear Diamanda Galas screaming Hebrews and I feel like "this woman has my back". Katy Perry would eat me for dinner

Not in here because it's in Spanish but one of the most disturbing songs I heard growing up was "Alarmala de Tos" by Cafe Tacuba a cover of Botellita de Jerez.

The song's lyrics are so perverse but that was Botellita de Jerez schtick they were setting on to be one of the most hated bands in latinamerica. I don't know which version is more disturbing the original one is very chirpy like a 50's 60's rock song hiding hideous lyrics, cafe tacuba takes the lyrics at face value and pairs it with much more sinister ambience.

I'll try to translate it for you in a bit.

Not in here because it's in Spanish but one of the most disturbing songs I heard growing up was "Alarmala de Tos" by Cafe Tacuba a cover of Botellita de Jerez.

The song's lyrics are so perverse but that was Botellita de Jerez schtick they were setting on to be one of the most hated bands in latinamerica. I don't know which version is more disturbing the original one is very chirpy like a 50's 60's rock song hiding hideous lyrics, cafe tacuba takes the lyrics at face value and pairs it with much more sinister ambience.

I'll try to translate it for you in a bit.

La Lola, paciente mendigaba,
Sufría, su jefe la obligaba
Con ella, sacaba buena lana
La pobre era jorobada
Su madre, le metía al talón,
Era perversa, y de mal corazón
Su hermano, vivía en el reventon
El era el filo, amante de un pasión
Ese día, pasaba normalmente,
Cuando su padre, atacola de repente,
Violola, con un deseo demente,
Y ella quiso, morirse en ese instante,
Mato a su padre, cuando este la seguía
Mientras su hermano, con su madre le ponía,
Pensó que ayuda, jamas encontraría,
Hasta que al fin, hallo un policía
Alarma, Alarmala de tos,
Uno, dos, tres,
Patada y cos,
La Lola, su historia lloro,
Y auxilio al "tira" imploro
El azul, sonriendo la miro
Que creen que fue lo que paso
Que paso?
Siguiola, atacola, golpeola, violola y matola con una pistola
Alarma, Alarmala de tos,
Uno, dos, tres,
Patada y cos,
Alarma

Hard song to translate as there's too much wordplay and some invented words like 'ALARMALA' and "COS". There's no easy way to translate the title and chorus to english 'alarmala de tos' is a word play on alarma (alarm) and 'armala de tos" which google would translate as "make a cough" as that is the literal translation but it's a phrase that would actually translate as 'create a problem'... like say if you're mad at someone and you would look to pick up a fight him that's what 'armarla de tos' means roughly.

Anyways here it goes:

Lola was a patient beggar
she suffered, his father forced her
with her she made some good money
the poor girl was humped.
Her mother would make her trip when walking
She was perverse, with a bad hear.
Her brother was always partying
he was 'el filo' (no idea what this means), lover of a fat man.
That day felt like a normal day for her
Until his father started attacking her
He raped her with an insane desire
and she felt like dying at that moment
She killed her father while he was following her
while in the other room her brother and mother were fucking
She thought she would never find any help
but then she found a policeman

Alarm, Alarmala de tos
one two three, a kick and cos

Lola cried her story to him
and 'help' to the 'tira' she implored (tira is slang for police)
the blue man, smiling looked at her.
What do you think happened next?
He followed her, he attacked her, he hitted her, he raped her and he killed her.
With his gun.

Alarm, Alarmala de tos
one two three, a kick and cos

Her mother would make her trip when walking
She was perverse, with a bad heart.

not sure about the translation to this one actually. In spanish it literally says 'She put her heel in her' but we say 'le metio el pie / put the feet" when you make someone trip... odd thing is you always use 'feet' not 'heel' when using this phrase... I dunno considering how perverse the rest of the song is it might be something sexual.

The only thing I've ever heard which was so dissonant that I had to turn it off (and I've never actually got through it) is Ventolin

:) i went thru a phase of cranking "Ventolin" thru headphones cos it felt beautifully cathartic/calming

The weird thing about this song is that it's lyrics are horrid but it would play on the radio. It was fairly popular back in the 90's when cafe tacuba covered it.

The only thing I've ever heard which was so dissonant that I had to turn it off (and I've never actually got through it) is Ventolin

:) i went thru a phase of cranking "Ventolin" thru headphones cos it felt beautifully cathartic/calming

― be the cringe you want to see in the world (Noodle Vague), Sunday, September 24, 2017 6:06 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'll happily listen to that song through speakers but usually skip it if I'm listening on earphones, always feels like a recipe for instant tinnitus.

Thinking of that album I also remember jumping out my skin at the "ALRIGHT?!" at the beginning of 'Cow Cud Is a Twin' the first time I heard it.

That seems like a strong candidate, Moka.

Do you have a Spotify/YouTube link Moka?

Sure. This is the original Botellita de Jerez one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2BJD2qLNxI

And this is the more popular Cafe Tacuba cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl3oooLM9R8

They sound like two very different songs.

This has turned into quite a fascinating discussion.

After reading this thread, some approach the topic from an aural angle; e.g., sounds and tones that sound disturbing. Others come at it from a narrative or lyrical content perspective (no doubt fed by one's culture), regardless of the tones used. In the latter, there is much more discussion to be had, of course, and I would thus add an array of examples such as Wagner for its appropriation by Nazi supporters, Charles Manson, and one which gives me a bit of a chuckle that has not even been hinted at: performative metal (such as black, doom, etc.). It appears as though the post-modern tick of "death of the author" (bless Barthes) has bitten a few, so authorial intent gets thrown out the window. It's definitely not a bad thing. Constructing an argument for disturbing vs non-disturbing songs makes for a far more interesting read. My apologies for this meta-analysis on the ways different users in a community or ILXOR.com interpret the topic at hand.

I much prefer the Cafe Tacuba one and the video is good. So before watching let me put some context behind this song which makes it kind of a parody song... the lyrics on their own are disturbing but it is because they are poking at a very specific kind of tabloids we have in Mexico. We called them 'Amarillistas' which stands for Yellow Press or Yellow Journalism. The Cafe Tacuba video is even based on this sort of yellow press where the exaggerate and create a very morbid scenario when writing news... it's usually very disrespectful to the victims as they even include very explicit pictures of the corpses and the crime scenes.

I'm not from Mexico City but I think one of the most popular yellow tabloids was called 'ALARMA' so Botellita de Jerez were criticizing their news format with this song.

Yes, I just doublechecked... it was called 'Alarma' magazine and it was fucking horrific. Take a look at the google search but beware it is very NSFW / NSFL so only click if you don't mind looking at dead people:

https://www.google.com.mx/search?biw=1453&bih=843&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=alarma+revista&oq=alarma+revista&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i67k1j0l3.3275.3560.0.3784.3.3.0.0.0.0.158.305.0j2.2.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.2.304...0i13k1j0i8i7i30k1.0.fMlLriaM3Sw

Oh looking at the Cafe Tacuba video I now understand this part:

Her brother was always partying
he was 'el filo' (no idea what this means), lover of a fat man.

It's actually:

Her brother was always partying
They nicknamed him 'Lilo' and he was the lover of a fat man.

Lilo in spanish is a usual nickname for Liliane a girl's name.

Oh btw it seems 'coz' is not actually an invented word sorry it's spanish for the backwards kick horses do with their two legs... is there an english translation for it? Is it just called horsekick?

Good share Moka

Feral House published a book some years ago that included a lot of photos from ¡Alarma! and other Mexican tabloids, as part of a larger study of death in Mexican pop culture.

voted Boiler, I can handle fully whacked destructo sound terror and enjoy it, but I cannot listen to that narration any more

“Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon,” Robert Ashley

It's been a long time since I heard The Boiler and went to check it out again. I didn't realise it has a music video. Obviously the heaviest of trigger warnings apply to this, got to the end but not listening again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va5Rdg3ibBI

I reckon this + a good Channel 4 drama I watched = possibly the reasons I never had the rape humour phase which seemed to afflict so many of my fellow sixth formers.

The second most disturbing Scott Walker track for me is 'Cue'. The idea of the 'flugelman' (in my mind some sort of grotesque man/horn hybrid) stalking through hospital wards, was enough to keep me up til the early hours after a late-night Drift listen. 'The Escape' has the jump-cut but the imagery in 'Cue' freaks me out almost as much. 'Clara' might be about a hanging but I think of it as a moment of respite on an album full of incredibly tense moments.

for entries in the list its 'the boiler'.

for non-list suggestions, it has to be 'Requiem: The Holocaust' by David Axelrod.

“Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon,” Robert Ashley

Oh yes, this shook me up a bit the first time I heard it.

Having listened to a few of these...well, it's Diamanda, isn't it, always was going to be

opened this thread solely to see if the lisa germano album was mentioned

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

This series from The Caretaker, constructing a musical narrative around progressive dementia using jazz-age source material, is seriously unsettling/depressing to me, to the point that I'm dreading the release of the last three parts of the series:

https://thecaretaker.bandcamp.com/album/everywhere-at-the-end-of-time

Stage 1 - September 2016 (A+B)
Here we experience the first signs of memory loss.
This stage is most like a beautiful daydream.
The glory of old age and recollection.
The last of the great days.

Stage 2 - April 2017 (C+D)
The second stage is the self realisation and awareness that something is wrong with a refusal to accept that. More effort is made to remember so memories can be more long form with a little more deterioration in quality. The overall personal mood is generally lower than the first stage and at a point before confusion starts setting in.

Stage 3 - Released in September 2017 (E+F)
Here we are presented with some of the last coherent memories before confusion fully rolls in and the grey mists form and fade away. Finest moments have been remembered, the musical flow in places is more confused and tangled. As we progress some singular memories become more disturbed, isolated, broken and distant. These are the last embers of awareness before we enter the post awareness stages.

Stage 4 - Released in March 2018
Post awareness stage 4 will be without description.

Stage 5 - Released in September 2018
Post awareness stage 5 will be without description.

Stage 6 - Released in March 2019
Post awareness stage 6 will be without description.

i've found the first volume of matana roberts' coin coin project particularly disquieting, given all the things i listen to that would disquiet most people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOu0Y52BqEY

... to the point where i don't really seek it out to listen to, even though i think it's great. i never feel up to it.

crut - stage 3 gets seriously rough.

Good call on Matana. The primal scream stuff on pov piti is devestating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKVq4_lBgzY

Just heard this one today, humoristic yet so so sickening and wrong

Alice Donut - Bucketfulls of Sickness and Horror in an Otherwise Meaningless Life (1989)

https://youtu.be/092DUlx2hX0

Sorry, song is called Lisa’s Father.

the escape song is weird because Donald Duck is saying something Bugs Bunny says, accompanied by wrangled slide FX that sound imported from Looney Tunes

― Week of Wonders (Ross), Friday, September 22, 2017 11:10 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've been thinking about this recently. There's something eerie about, like, when I see fairground rides with cartoon characters that have been badly painted on the side of Mickey Mouse and also Tweetie Pie and Bart Simpson (etc) and they're all slightly off and clearly breaking copyright law. There's no reason this should disturb me but it's unheimlich. Same as those really cheap children's YouTube videos with badly-animated Spiderman interacting robotically with some other cartoon character...

I think the thing that disturbs me about poor-quality kid's entertainment is the sheer lack of concern for the target audience. Or rather the lack of concern for a target audience that can't be blamed for its lack of discernment, and also the tacit acknowledgement that children don't yet have a fully-developed consciousness - they soak up stimuli indiscriminately - which is disturbing in its own way because if you accept that consciousness results from the growth of the brain then it follows that we do not have immortal souls.

Of the songs in the list "Death Disco" is upsetting for the single cover, which is a drawing of little Johnny Lydon and his mum. It's grotesque but devastatingly sad. She lived a hard life and died painfully of cancer in 1978. "Frankie Teardrop" works because it's relentless, but I find it too melodramatic to be disturbing. "The Escape" is to date the only song that has ever made me jump - it's a perfectly-formed jump scare - but it's not disturbing on an emotional level. "Clara" from the same album is more affecting. I've never been able to take Throbbing Gristle seriously, they just come across as incredibly smug and self-satisfied. The same is true of Coil, Nurse With Wound, This Heat, all of the British dark noise bands. The members were all called Colin, Peter, Tony, or Charles. I can't be disturbed by a man called Charles.

Relatively-current internet sensation "Plastic Love" is smooth and upbeat but has surprisingly bleak lyrics, with roughly the same theme as "I Thought You Were My Boyfriend". Has any pop music disturbed me on a deep, spiritual level? Probably the genetic autotune hip-hop that plays in European supermarkets, because it spits in the face of the idea that pop music might be good. Also the Black Eyed Peas, because their songs sounded as if they were written by a team of seven writers specifically for a television dance routine.

Beautiful post (missed your posts here!)

I can't be disturbed by a man called Charles.

I can think of a fairly disturbing man called Charles who had an abortive music career...

I recently came across an early-career album from Brian Williams of Lustmord: Isolrubin BK Crash Injury Trauma and this is right up there with the most disturbing stuff I've ever heard and I'm never touching it again. If you've ever been in or near a car crash, you might want to avoid it altogether.

As long as this thread's gotten a timely revival: I'm planning to do a special Halloween episode of my local radio show, and though I've found a lot of good material by scouring this and every other ILX thread with "scary", "disturbing", "unsettling" etc. in the title, I'd really appreciate some direct responses (and just, in general, I'd enjoy adding to the canon of people talking about frightening music on here).

The theme is meant to be more "upsetting music" than broadly horror-themed (kind of like the original Quietus prompt), so while loud stuff is certainly fine - I'm planning to cap off the night with "Cue" by Scott Walker - it doesn't necessarily qualify just because it's black metal/power electronics/your edgy genre of choice. If it's placid and still manages to scare you that's a plus (eg, "This Is Not My Stomach" by Bedwetter is definitely getting played). And I'd rather not have to explain "this is about [horrific real-world event]" during my mic break to get the point across - so if it comes up in the lyrics that's fine, but it strikes me as somewhat insensitive to "goose" the scare factor of the music with an explanation of the subject matter if/when it isn't already apparent.
A considerable thanks in advance, and I'm already listening through Crash Injury Trauma to assess its viability.

I can think of a fairly disturbing man called Charles who had an abortive music career...

― Let them eat Pfifferlinge an Schneckensauce (Tom D.), Thursday, 19 September 2019 22:36 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I listened to a Charles Manson prison album once (Way Of The Wolf).

Plenty of stuff on there that would count as 'most disturbing'.
Listened to it once years ago out of morbid curiosity but wouldn't go there again.

The members were all called Colin, Peter, Tony, or Charles. I can't be disturbed by a man called Charles.

― Ashley Pomeroy

Scott Baio disturbes me. I know his actual name isn't Charles. The Prince of Wales disturbs me.

I feel like any name has the potential to disturb me, particularly if it's a man's name.

I’m with AP on Throbbing Gristle - they always seemed like desperate try-hards to me.

Champiness, I'd renominate "Disturbance" by The Move. See what you think...

@Champiness: try Elend, anything off The Umbersun or The World In Their Screams - thick choral/orchestral nightmarish music.

Also Deutsch Nepal Horses Give Birth To Flies off Tolerance for that reverbed horse's neigh.

I've been thinking about this recently. There's something eerie about, like, when I see fairground rides with cartoon characters that have been badly painted on the side of Mickey Mouse and also Tweetie Pie and Bart Simpson (etc) and they're all slightly off and clearly breaking copyright law.

The primary school I went to had a wall in the main hall with a load of Disney characters painted on it, I remember in one assembly one of the younger children bursting into tears because the picture of Dumbo frightened them - I was puzzled by this at the time but as an adult I know exactly what you mean.

Ladytron's "Seventeen". The whole of the lyric is "they only want you when you're seventeen / when you're twenty-one, you're no fun / they take a Polaroid and let you go, say they'll let you know / so come on".

It was queasy back in 2002 and is still queasy given #metoo and Jeffrey Epstein etc. I learn from the Youtube comments that Kellogg's of Australia gave it away on a CD free with Coco Pops(!):
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Kelloggs-Coco-Pops/release/9061049

I can listen to dissonant/extreme stuff namechecked on this thread all day and all night, but the one song that will mess me up without fail is Richard & Linda Thompson's "Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed"

Is anybody else discomfited by the sound of Jon Hassell's trumpet on 'Shadow' from On Land? It's so odd, plus all the mouth sounds and breathing in-between, ugh