(A) Hauntology Playlist(s)
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Trigger warning: please be aware you may find some of the concepts behind the music chosen troubling - though listening to the music itself should not be problematic. The main topics of concern, and the related items, are:
- suicide (Beachy Head - Throbbing Gristle)
- Alzheimer's disease / dementia (An Empty Bliss Beyond This World - The Caretaker - first and second versions)
NOTE: Where possible Bandcamp links are given as these should play without logging into the site. Some tracks have to use a Spotify link. To hear the full song on Spotify you need to have an account and be signed in via the web player - otherwise only a preview of the track is played.
Proto-hauntology
The use of the term hauntology as an aesthetic in music was only really applied from the turn of the Millennium. The artists and songs in this section show some aspects of hauntology in their work in advance of this.
1. Mattachin by Delia Derbyshire (from BBC Radiophonic Music 1968)
The work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop is a touchstone for many artists whose work is described as hauntological. It is reflected mainly in the use of analogue electronics and tape manipulation but also for its nostalgic qualities as it harks back to the 60s and 70s. Many hauntological artists create their own idents or soundtracks, to real (or more usually imaginary) films, in the style of the Radiophonic Workshop as part of their work.
See: House, techno, grime: Did they start with these women? - BBC Ideas (10/1/18)
2. Beachy Head by Throbbing Gristle (from 20 Jazz Funk Greats 1979)
Throbbing Gristle were a product of the explosion of bands to come out of the post-punk era of the mid to late 70s. Widely considered to be the pioneers of Industrial music - the name of the genre was taken from the name of their record label. The album cover image and title references other genres, though more contemporary than is seen in the hauntology aesthetic, while having a darker meaning for those in the know.
"We did the cover so it was a pastiche of something you would find in Woolworth’s bargain bin. We took the photograph at the most famous suicide spot in England, called Beachy Head. So, the picture is not what it seems, it is not so nicey nicey at all, and neither is the music once you take it home and buy it." [from an interview with Cosey Fanni Tutti by Emma Warren, Red Bull Music Academy, November 2012]
3. ABC Auto-Industry by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (from Dazzle Ships 1983)
A common component of hauntological music is the use of sound collages and shortwave radio recordings with natural or digitally added decay/hiss/crackle. On this album, these were used to explore the worries of the time surrounding the Eastern Bloc, the Cold War and the threat of technology to jobs and traditional working practices.
4. Pump Up the Volume by M|A|R|R|S (single from 1987)
The layering of samples and processing effects is another feature of hauntological music. It is usually used to convey age or induce nostalgia. While there is a rich history of composers and artists reusing and remixing sound in this way, it burst onto the mainstream with the rise in popularity of hip hop and electronic dance music. This one-hit wonder was an early example which was composed almost entirely of samples of other music.
Pump Up the Volume - samples used
5. English Lady - Unknown (from The Conet Project 1997)
Another common technique to add to the otherworldliness or sense of nostalgia in the music is to take clips from TV or radio broadcasts and incorporate them into the work. Shortwave radio is a common source of clips for modern composers and electronic musicians. This track is taken from a CD of recordings of so-called number stations. These are mysterious broadcasts thought to be a one-way transmission of coded information to undercover agents in another country.
See: The spooky world of the 'numbers stations' - BBC News (16/4/14)
6. Aquarius by Boards of Canada (from Music Has the Right to Children 1998)
Scottish duo, Boards of Canada, were one of the first artists to incorporate many of the elements described above into their music. The name of the group is a reference to the National Film Board of Canada whose films were a staple of UK TV in the 70s. The track itself contains samples from the song Aquarius (from the musical Hair) as well the US children's programme, Sesame Street.
Hauntological Artists
The remaining tracks are from artists and record labels whose work is largely hauntological in nature.
7. Haunting Me by The Caretaker (from Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom1999)
Probably the most important artist in hauntology is Leyland Kirby. He started out as a noise artist and moved into plunderphonic and remix projects but as The Caretaker has released a number of works relating to the deterioration of memory. This track is from his first release as The Caretaker. The name and the project were inspired by the 1980 film The Shining and uses processed samples of 1930s ballroom records to evoke the ghosts of the past.
8. Lambing by Philip Jeck (from Stoke 2002)
While most of the artists discussed tend to use samples of old recordings or old analogue synthesizers to recreate the sound of the 60s or 70s, Philip Jeck creates his music from an arsenal of turntables and physical records. These can then be played at the wrong speed, layered together and looped to produce the desired effect. The crackles and hiss of the old vinyl becomes part of the texture of the pieces.
See: Philip Jeck - Solo Improvisation at Bishopsgate Institute, London
9. Everyday Science (for Ron Geesin) by The Advisory Circle (from Mind How You Go 2005)
The first of several tracks from the Ghost Box record label. As well as the music, the label applies a retro design aesthetic to all their releases. The designs are often reminiscent of school textbooks or penguin/pelican book covers of the 60s and 70s. See a selection of posters from the label on their website.
"The sounds are the by now familiar-strange Ghost Box signatures: slightly angular analogue synths and a summer haze of voices (lifted from public service films and children's records) benignly conspiring to produce a convivial uneasy listening. The past as a shared dream." [Mark Fisher from the k-punk blog, 28 October 2005]
10. The Death of Rave 003 by V/Vm (from the Death of Rave 2006)
From the original press release:
"The idea for ‘The Death Of Rave’ was conceived in early 2006 after a visit to the Berghain Club in Berlin. At the time Berghain was about to explode on the international club scene as a temple. The feeling was in the air that something special was happening. I went and saw a pale shadow of the past. Grim and boring beats, endlessly pounding to an audience who felt they were part of an experience but who lacked cohesion and energy. For me personally something had died. Be it a spirit, be it an ideal, be it an adventure in sound. Rave and techno felt dead to me."
"An audio soup of half remembered rave anthems featuring all of the hits and many misses from the golden age of the Northern U.K. rave scene. From the run-down Blackburn warehouses through to the M6 service stations enroute to Shelly's in Stoke the people came. The rave legacy no longer lives on, the corpse of rave bears no resemblance to those heady days in the late eighties and early nineties."
11. Hobgoblins by Mount Vernon Arts Lab (From The Séance at Hobs Lane 2007)
The album title, "The Séance at Hobs Lane", mentions a location in the TV series Quatermass and the Pit.
"Under various aliases – the Focus Group, the Advisory Circle, Belbury Poly – the secret chiefs of the Ghost Box label craft an apparently unique strand of British electronica, drawing on library recordings, 1970s schools television and psycho-geographical theory. But, lacking a genesis myth, they’ve exhumed Mount Vernon Arts Lab’s forgotten 1999 album, The Séance at Hobs Lane, which anticipated their innovations, and repackaged it in the livery of their own releases, fabricating evidence of a musical movement." [from a review by Stewart Lee in Sunday Times Culture quoted on the Ghost Box web site]
12. The Green Station Haunt by The Focus Group (From We are all Pan's People 2007)
"We are all Pan’s People is almost too perfect a Focus Group title, what with its allusions to both the dance troupe from 1970s Top of the Pops and Weird author Arthur Machen’s masterpiece, The Great God Pan. Transforming kitsch into the eldritch is the alchemical art at which the Focus Group excel, and We Are All Pan’s People puts you in mind of the now empty Top of the Pops studio being used as the site for a séance. The ghosts of an old BBC – patrician voices intoning poetry, the Radiophonic workshop, anonymous jazz-funksters, wind-blown Folkies, spaced-out Psych Rockers – are summoned and invited to cavort in an unlikely rite. The Sixties and Seventies are not so much remembered as re-dreamt." [from a review by Mark Fisher in Fact quoted on the Ghost Box web site]
13. An Empty Bliss Beyond This World by The Caretaker (from An Empty Bliss Beyond This World 2011)
"The Caretaker conjures a quieter, more introspective spirit, lost in his own mind amidst a low-lit labyrinth of ever-decaying and antediluvian shellac phrases. Sourced from a mysterious collection of 78s, these vague snippets of archaic sonics reflect the ability of Alzheimers patients to recall the songs of their past, and with them recollections of places, people, moods and sensations." [from Bandcamp album description]
14. An Empty Bliss Beyond This World by The Caretaker (From Everywhere at the End of Time 2017)
Comparison with the above track as part of a larger exploration of memory loss. The track is part of the representation of stage 3 (of 6) of the progression of Alzheimer's.
"When work began on this series it was difficult to predict how the music would unravel itself. Dementia is an emotive subject for many and always a subject I have treated with maximum respect. Stages have all been artistic reflections of specific symptoms which can be common with the progression and advancement of the different forms of Alzheimer's." [from Bandcamp album description]
15. The Dechmont Woods Encounter by Grey Frequency (from Ufology 2019)
"Ufology is an audio exploration of 20th century British UFO sightings. Each of the eight tracks focuses on a specific encounter from UFO folklore and reinterprets it as an excursion in haunting sound and unsettling atmosphere." [from Bandcamp album description]
This incident, which occurred near Livingston, is apparently the only UFO sighting in the UK that was investigated by police - see the links below:
- Robert Taylor incident - Wikipedia article
- The UFO sighting investigated by the police - BBC News (9/11/19)
16. The Devil & St. Dunstan by Justin Hopper & Sharron Kraus with The Belbury Poly (from Chanctonbury Rings 2019)
"Based around the rich, self-narrated poetry and prose of American writer Justin Hopper, it tells the part-supernatural folk tale of his experiences at Chanctonbury Rings, an Iron Age hillfort on the Sussex Downs.
The wyrd-folk eeriness and electro-acoustic atmospherics of the main thrust of this beautifully sequenced tale, which reaches its expositional peak on the wonderful ‘Layers’, is brilliantly counterpoised by Belbury Poly’s signally 70s-evoking analogue synth, nostalgic tv theme quirk throughout." [from a review by Carl Griffin in Electronic Sound quoted on the Ghost Box web site]
17. The Ghosts of Fleet Forest (Opening Titles) by The British Stereo Collective (from Mystery Fields 2021)
"Although the Mystery Fields album cover has the look and feel of a BBC Radiophonic Workshop release, the album itself is a wider nod to various TV theme compilations that Phil grew up with in the 1970s and early 1980s, including the classic Geoff Love releases and the BBC themes and sound effects albums. What comes across most is the love and affection for the period, beautifully recreated in the meticulous detail of the album artwork and the effortless precision with which the tracks are put together and sequenced." [from the album description on the Bandcamp page]
18. Gateway to the North by Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan (from Interim Report, March 1979 2021)
'[Gordon] Chapman-Fox grew up in Lancashire, and having been a frequent user of the famous Preston Bus Station in his youth, he was struck by the enormous chasm between the sixties architects utopian vision for what new towns should be and the sticky-floored, piss-streaked reality. He explains: “The more I looked into it, the appeal of these visionary architects grew. It felt like perhaps the most visionary building projects of all post war Britain were some of the estates built in Warrington and Runcorn new towns, these twin towns on either side of the Mersey. The estates of Runcorn were space-age futurist with external plumbing, rounded windows and raised walkways. But as housing, they were a failure. Runcorn was the last great UK modernist, futurist building project built with a community in mind. “Interim Report, March 1979” looks at this interim, this gap between vision and reality.”' [from the album description on the Bandcamp page]
19. On (Reclaimed) Land by Conflux Coldwell (from The Phantomatic Coast 2022)
Michael "Conflux" Coldwell is a musician and artist from Leeds UK. He is part of the Urban Exploration collective and works at the University of Leeds, where he conducts research into the hauntology of media.
"The East Coast of England is a land living on borrowed time. Time we borrowed from the North Sea, reclaimed a thousand years ago. But now it seems that sea has come to claim it all back. Michael C Coldwell spent three years travelling up and down this rapidly disappearing shoreline, collecting ghost stories, photographing the roads to nowhere, the monumental sound mirrors and pillboxes teetering on the edges of cliffs, making field recordings of the waves and fog signals, and writing mournful electronic music from static caravans. This hauntological project finally culminated in a short essay film entitled Views from Sunk Island - and this new Conflux Coldwell album." [from the album description on the Bandcamp page]
20. Rollercoaster Ghost by Dave Clarkson (From A Pocket Guide to Dream Land 2022)
"Following previous albums exploring British coastal quicksands, shorelines, caves and forests, Dave Clarkson takes his recorder into faded seaside towns and fairgrounds [...] and applies his production technique to the results. Some tracks are melodic and rhythmic while others are more desolate, capturing the unique fading atmosphere for the locations. Music was generated from the source sounds he recorded of penny falls, onboard rides, fairground organs, demolition noise, electrics and location ambience." [from the album description on the Bandcamp page]
Spotify playlist
14 of the 20 tracks are available on Spotify. Those tracks have been collated into the following playlist:
Alternative Playlist
On Sunday the 30th of October 2022, the BBC Radio 6 programme Freak Zone dedicated the episode to hauntology. This programme is available on BBC Sounds until the 28th of November 2022:
Hauntology Halloween Special (requires a BBC account to listen via Sounds - no longer available)
As with the above playlist, not all the music is available on Spotify but what is available has been compiled into this playlist:
The full programme tracklist was as follows:
- Structures Sonores Lasry-Baschet - Manège (not available on Spotify)
- The Advisory Circle - Escape Lane
- Burial - Etched Headplate
- Broadcast And The Focus Group - a seancing song
- Broadcast And The Focus Group - royal chant
- Boards of Canada - Twoism
- Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner - Bagpuss Opening Titles
- Ambrosian Singers - Children of the Stones (not available on Spotify)
- Paddy Kingsland - The Changes Suite
- The Soulless Party - Scarred For Life (not available on Spotify - Bandcamp)
- Mordant Music - Inn Ohm The Lake
- The Stranger - Bleaklow (not available on Spotify - Bandcamp)
- The Caretaker - The Great Hidden Sea of the Unconscious (not available on Spotify - Bandcamp)
- The Night Monitor - A Megalithic National Grid
- Alan Hawkshaw - Spirit Writing (not available on Spotify)
- Brian Hodgson - Frontier of Knowledge
- Delia Derbyshire - Pot au Feu
- David Cain - January
- Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan - Community Square
- The Advisory Circle - Civil Defence Is Common Sense
- The Advisory Circle - Everyday Hazards
- John Baker - 20th Century Focus
- John Baker - Radio Sheffield (News Idents)
- Pye Corner Audio - Hollow Earth
- Gilroy Mere - Christ's Hospital
- IX Tab - The Burned Wretch
- Eric Zann - It Is Narrow Here
- The Focus Group - The Magic Pendulum