Music Recommendation Filter - Classical Dread

July 24, 2017 9:34 AM

I'm looking for music to put on my kindle to accompany the books I'm reading - right now it's Metafilter's own cstross's Laundry Files series. I'm looking for something wordless and probably classical to project an ambient sense of chilling dread. Help me fill out my sensory reading experience!
posted by Naib to Media & Arts (18 answers total)

You might look at something like this, which is a soundtrack for Arkham Horror the board game. It's pretty good on atmosphere; not sure about dread. It definitely gets darker as the playlist progresses.
posted by teabag at 9:40 AM on July 24, 2017

Best answer: Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima by Krzysztof Penderecki will provide you with just shy of nine minutes of utter dread.
posted by merriment at 9:44 AM on July 24, 2017

Akira Yamaoka's soundtracks to Silent Hill 2 and 3 float between relaxed and tense dread ... so mixing up the flavour a bit in order to not have every song say, "be scared now".
posted by frimble at 9:52 AM on July 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Not classical, but you should check out Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. Instrumental horror jazz, very slow, very grim.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 10:17 AM on July 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Inward Circles may also be of use to you.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 10:19 AM on July 24, 2017

Although it is more about sonic ambiance than music, I think Tabletop Audio is really cool and might just fit the bill.
posted by EKStickland at 10:29 AM on July 24, 2017

Do the soundtrack to the Solaris remake or György Ligeti sound promising? (May not be dreadful enough but certainly tick the haunting box for me.)
posted by sldownard at 10:30 AM on July 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Rachmaninoff, The Isle of the Dead
posted by praemunire at 10:59 AM on July 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Half of Ligeti's Requiem fits the bill. The first movement is increasingly creepy and the second movement is dread-inducing (featured on 2001: A Space Odyssey). YMMV on the third and fourth movements.

Julia Kent's album Asperities is atmospheric and subtly creepy (especially Flag of No Country).
posted by esoterrica at 11:07 AM on July 24, 2017

You couldn't do better than either soundtrack for Twin Peaks by Angelo Badalamenti. It's on my regular dread rotation.
posted by Dressed to Kill at 11:25 AM on July 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

'A Lone Figure' leading into 'Say Your Prayers', from the soundtrack to Calvary.

'Vampire Annihilation' from the soundtrack to Being Human (the original UK series).
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 11:38 AM on July 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

The album Cinderland by High Plains. It's a collaboration between a cellist and electronic composer Loscil, whose music may also fit the bill: Drained Lake.
posted by otolith at 12:53 PM on July 24, 2017

I don't know how important "classical" is to the story, but you might look at dark ambient stuff from the last ~25 years. Lustmord, Zoviet France, etc...maybe Muslimgauze,
posted by rhizome at 1:25 PM on July 24, 2017

Arcana is a goth band that makes creepy-ish instrumentals. Check The Opening of the Wound or Winds of the Lost Soul.

There's also an unrelated more metal band called Nox Arcana who have a Necronomicon-themed instrumental album. Enjoy The Black Throne or The Great Old Ones.
posted by sukeban at 1:38 PM on July 24, 2017

Oh, and there's also Qntal, who have done a lot of techno-medieval things, among them putting dancey music to a summoning chant from the Carmina Burana. It's not Enochian but who's complaining.
posted by sukeban at 1:44 PM on July 24, 2017

Best answer: Last one: the parts in The Fuller Memorandum about Von Ungern-Sternberg and the Bogd Khan setting up the Wall of Pain need Tengger Cavalry.
posted by sukeban at 2:24 PM on July 24, 2017

George Crumb's string quartet Black Angels has a lot of dread in it. It's for amplified quartet so there are some moments that are loud rather than chilling. Actually lots of Crumb is chilling and sometimes creepy, though it's all quite beautiful.
posted by Smearcase at 4:13 PM on July 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: So many good answers, and I have also used a lot of the links that I didn't mark as best answer as ambient office music, which is helping me get through the week. Thanks everyone!
posted by Naib at 9:30 AM on July 31, 2017