The Uncanny

version

Well-known member
You know it when you hear it...

The album thread has me going back over Amber for the first time in a while and realising just how strangely familiar and dreamlike the whole thing is. It's probably not my favourite of theirs (Autechre), but it's the only one that really has this quality for me. It sounds like floating in space or sitting in an empty room on a very low dose of mushrooms, everything's kind of off but in a neutral way.

The closest thing I can think of in terms of feel is SAW Vol. II or the shots of the Nostromo hanging in space in Alien, there's just something in the pads and synths that projects you into this massive, empty, indifferent and oddly familiar place.

These three in particular come to mind:



 
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version

Well-known member
This particular theme from the Léon - The Professional soundtrack has something similar going on for me.

 
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version

Well-known member
My dad once described a mushroom trip where he sat in the corner of someone's living room and noticed that everything was just off in some way. Nothing had changed and he hadn't taken a large enough dose for anything drastic, but it all looked slightly different, in particular the cable running from the back of the TV which seemed to be bristling and slightly furry, much like the tail of a rat.

There's that Jandek album, Ready for the House, that really nails it when you look at the cover whilst listening.

 
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version

Well-known member
“From the earliest days of man there has endured the conviction that there is an order of existence which is entirely strange to him. It does indeed seem that the strict order of the visible world is only a semblance, one providing certain gross materials which become the basis for subtle improvisations of invisible powers. Hence, it may appear to some that a leafless tree is not a tree but a signpost to another realm; that an old house is not a house but a thing possessing a will of its own; that the dead may throw off that heavy blanket of earth to walk in their sleep, and in ours. And these are merely a few of the infinite variations on the themes of the natural order as it is usually conceived.

But is there really a strange world? Of course. Are there, then, two worlds? Not at all. There is only our own world and it alone is alien to us, intrinsically so by virtue of its lack of mysteries. If only it actually were deranged by invisible powers, if only it were susceptible to real strangeness, perhaps it would seem more like a home to us, and less like an empty room filled with the echoes of this dreadful improvising. To think that we might have found comfort in a world suited to our nature, only to end up in one so resoundingly strange!”

― Thomas Ligotti, The Nightmare Factory
 

version

Well-known member
This sort of stuff's possibly the closest you can get to a bad trip without taking anything. There's the odd film that can do it too: Lynch, Eyes Wide Shut. It's an oxymoron, but the best way I can think to describe it atm is 'ambiguous dread'.
 

version

Well-known member
My gut says it does, but I did consider Daniel Johnston. There's something about it being odd, but upbeat which neutralises the strangeness a little for me.
 

muser

Well-known member
i think there is something very uncanny about mysticism when its far removed from your mother tongue
 
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