HALLOWEEN.

I’ve got a busy week on, but I couldn’t live with myself if Stereo Sanctity failed to mark All Hallow’s Eve in suitable style, so, much as I posted my 2007 Summer mix CD a few months back, here’s my effort from last year’s Plan B Halloween CD swap, offered up upon the altar of your enjoyment.


The more cynical amongst you may tend to assume that this disc was merely an excuse to jam together eighty minutes worth of my favourite horror-referencin’ rock n’ roll and psychedelia songs to no particular purpose. But no, I actually put a lot of – ahem – ‘thought’ into this one.

You see, the basic concept is that it’s the soundtrack album to the perfect, mind-blowing teen-horror movie that exists somewhere in the back of my brain, pitched somewhere between Charles Burns’ ‘Black Hole’ and ‘Horror Of Beach Party’, via H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror and decaying New England seaports, ‘Psychomania’, ‘Return Of The Living Dead’, all with some Jodorowsky-esque psychedelic loon behind the camera.

I can see it now: after the silent opening sequence in which a canoodling couple of clean-cut jock types are shockingly slain by some unseen aquatic creature, OPENING CREDITS ROLL as Roky launches into “It’s A Cold Night For Alligators”… fantastic. The amazing Micragirls would appear in the film, playing their song “Cat Fight” at the church hall teen-dance, into which a sanity-shattered victim of horrors-not-to-be-named would stagger, inadvertently sparking a wild delinquent brawl of some kind. At least some sections of the film would stick within the boundaries of b-movie teen tradition, but, as the soundtrack will make clear, things would swiftly descend into twisted lunacy, as the reality underpinning the lives of our gang of punk-kid protagonists would begin the collapse – a situation that calls for some SERIOUS PSYCHE for accompaniment. Things would naturally get darker and darker as the situation progressed, climaxing in a veritable rampage of utter WTF cosmic disturbance somewhat in the vein of Zulawski‘s ‘Possession’. And as the final set of eyes glaze over in death, there’d be a few seconds – just a bit more than would be comfortable for a cinema audience – of total blackness…. and then The Ramones would kick into “Why Is It Always This Way?” as the credits roll. Yeah.

Or, alternatively, just take it as a bunch of songs. Some of my selections may seem a little obvious to connoisseurs of weird/underground rock, but at the same time, I know there’ll be some folks out there who are still sadly unacquainted with “Deep In The Woods” or “The Crusher”, never mind “(Ballad Of A) Hip Death Goddess” or “The White Ship”…. and if those folks is you, well, there’s no better time than now to rectify that situation. And meanwhile, perhaps the more jaded amongst you can have fun pondering the unorthodox inclusion of Herman dune and Swell Maps on a horror-comp, and digging the bonus atmospherics.

Whatever though – this mix features some of my favourite music of all-time, so enjoy it.

I’ll be having myself a thoroughly crazed and adolescent Halloween this year anyway, going to see Slayer and Mastodon at the Hammersmith Apollo, and I wish you all a similar amount of authentically Wrong Fun. Because face it, it’s in all our interests to make the best of the one night of the year during which getting wrecked and watching Jean Rollin movies, playing Electric Wizard records at appropriate volume, and stalking around graveyards at midnight with blood dripping down yr chin, are all deemed to be socially acceptable.

Track-list:

1. “sounds from hell”
2. Roky Erickson & The Aliens – It’s A Cold Night For Alligators
3. Dead Moon – Graveyard
4. Frog – Wtichhunt
5. The Darkest Of The Hillside Thickets – Goin’ Down To Dunwich
6. H.P. Lovecraft – The White Ship
7. The Cramps – Teenage Werewolf (alternate version w/ false start)
8. …
9. David-Ivar Herman Dune – Sheer Wonder
10. The Micragirls – Catfight
11. Ultimate Spinach – (Ballad Of A) Hip Death Goddess
12. The Factory – Path Through The Forest
13. Swell Maps – Harmony In Your Bathroom
14. Breakfast Inside The Skull – Stalking Monstrous Prey
15. Roky Erickson & The Aliens – Bloody Hammer
16. Lightnin’ Hopkins – Black Ghost Blues
17. Sonic Youth – Shaking Hell
18. The Novas – The Crusher
19. The Beaux Jens – She Was Mine
20. The Birthday Party – Deep In The Woods
21. ….
22. The Ramones – Why Is It Always This Way?


Download (93mb .zip file)

Labels: halloween, horror, mixtapes