And With Strange Aeons - a cosmic horror mix from Mr. Tea

Right, well this is the fruits of an idea I've been playing with for a while now - a few of you have heard the first draft - and here it is. My first real attempt at anything like this so just bear that in mind! Hopefully it will appeal to fans of ambient weirdness, sinister pop, dub(step), industrial and, um, H. P. Lovecraft. Enjoy...


I can put a track list up if anyone's interested, btw.

Part 2 coming next week hopefully.

OK, here goes:

00:00 Trent Reznor (don't laugh!) - Quake soundtrack, track 9
01:10 Paul Giovanni and Magnet, with Leslie Mackie - The Wicker Man title theme
02:55 Demdike Stare - 'Haxan Dub'
06:15 Cabaret Voltaire - 'Yashar' 2x45 version
10:05 the little sample here is from 'Cars' by G. Numan
10:14 Human League - 'Being Boiled'
13:26 Tackhead/Sherwood - 'Mind At The End Of Its Tether'
17:07 Download - 'Bell Shaw'
19:28 Panacea - 'Hellbringer'
21:53 Front 242 - 'Dancesoundtrackmusic'
25:01 Monochrome - 'Mine A Kill Dem'*
26:50 Narcossist - 'White Lotus'/Scare Dem Crew - 'Take Off'*
27:19 Throbbing Gristle - 'E. Coli'
29:42 Diamanda Galas/John Paul Jones - 'Hex'
33:22 Edouard Scotto - 'Underground Cathedral, Cryptum, Abyssum'**
36:30 Strapping Young Lad - 'Japan'
41:29 Cop Shoot Cop - 'Transmission'
45:24 Demdike Stare - 'The Stars Are Moving'
49:40 Aphex Twin - 'Digeridoo'
55:38 Sepultura - 'Kaiowas'
57:44 Autechre - 'Lowride'
61:04 Devin Townsend - 'Voices In The Fan' (edit: the sample is originally from Lagrime di San Pietro by Orlande de Lassus)
65:22 Ministry - 'Dream Song'

For my money, the best bit is when Galas's witchy wail starts coming in over the top of TG's crawling chaos...really chuffed with how that worked.

I also think 'Digeridoo' is strangely appropriate here..."the thin monotonous whine of an accursed flute and the maddening, muffled beat of vile drums" (etc. etc.)...Nyarlathaphex!


*these tracks shamelessly ripped off from Grievous Angel's Dubstep Sufferah Vol 3
**thanks Slim!

Part Two is now up!
Track list is on the page. Feedback welcome, as ever. These were loads of fun to make.

nomos said:

PS - you might get a kick out of this http://www.deeptime.net/blog/?p=716

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Nice one, thanks! Just listening now. I see someone else has fallen under the nefarious spell of Demdike Stare - dammit, now I wish I'd used 'Suspicious Drone' on one of my mixes...

Great image too, very Cyclonopedian.

Edit: just found this, seems to resonate quite well with some stuff on your mix - Saturn's radio emissions turned into audio-frequency sound, WELL spooky - http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07966.html

Wait till you reach the 35 min mark...

IdleRich said:

Ha, thought I recognised that second one - Onion Jack, still sounds good! What lp is that on?

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Um, it's not, as far as I know. It was available for free download on the official Portion Control website a few years ago. I think there's various versions of it, I'll post a link to it if I can find it. Or I could just email you the mp3, if the internet police don't get me first.

Edit: there's this, doesn't seem to have that track on it though: http://www.discogs.com/Portion-Control-Onion-Jack-IV/master/63201 oh, and this http://www.discogs.com/Portion-Control-Wellcome/master/372898

IdleRich said:

Ha, got interrupted yesterday and listening to the rest now. Only just realised you put our tune in it - it's the low quality one (isn't it?) but it sounds appropriately scuzzy here I think. Nice one.

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Yeah, I think that's the only version you sent me, but I actually really like how trebly the drums sound and I whacked up the gain so I think it sounds pretty beefy.

Basically the tunes fall mainly into three categories: the out-and-out evil stuff (Demdike Stare, Throbbing Gristle, Muslimgauze), the dreamy/ethereal stuff (Portion Control, Autechre, White Noise) and the stuff that could be what the ubiquitous depraved mongrel cultists do their frenzied, ecstatic dancing to (Paul White's mutated 'Venus In Furs', Q Project, your track).

baboon2004 said:

'Giovane Donna Il Su' by Orlandus Lassus is the choir part on the penultimate track, according to youtube.

Nice mix!

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Sweet, thanks for that, I've been trying for ages to find out what it's from. Edit: full title is 'Lagrimi Di San Pietro - Giovane Donna Il Suo Bel Volto In Specchio', it says.

The second mix features a (descending) Shepard tone - can't be too many mixes that include wunna them. On the youtube page I nicked it from, one of the comments is "This is what it sounds like as you drive into Slough", which I thought was brilliant.

Heh, sonic politics indeed - I spect you've already looked it up on Wikipedia but a Shepard tone is a series of harmonic scales played in a cycle that create the auditory illusion of a sound that continuously either rises or falls. There's loads of examples on youtube, have a listen. It's really spooky because you know that the sound should soon become inaudible to human ears but it just keeps on getting lower or higher forever.

An interesting visual analogue is when you spin round and round on the spot and then sit or stand still - the world seems to still be 'spinning' in one direction or the other but of course everything in your field of vision is actually stationary.

Hey, cool idea for your Vocalities blog: obtain or record a vocal sample, feed it though a synthesizer and use that as a basis for a Shepard tone! I bet that would sound freaky as all hell.