In the weeks leading up to Halloween we watch scary movies and we read scary stories but are we listening to enough scary music?  No, probably not!  So here are some suggestions to get you in the spooky spirit.

1. A good scary movie is usually accompanied by a soundtrack that makes your hair stand on end.  The score can create suspense, set the mood, and heighten the experience. Disasterpeace (Richard Vreeland, only 28 years old) composed the soundtrack to one of 2015’s scariest movies, It Follows, and it is the perfect backdrop for a haunted house tour.
2. The show Stranger Things came out at just the right time and was the dose of Science Fiction&ndashHorror we all needed.  The soundtrack is a masterpiece composed by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein, members of an instrumental band called S U R V I V E,who may just get some acclaim thanks to the success of the show.
3. If chill-out synthscapes are your thing (and why wouldn't they be) you’ll want to check out Oneohtrix Point Never.  The man behind the sound, Daniel Lopatin, has also dabbled in film scores (The Bling Ring, 2013).



4. We may not always notice creepy lyrics when they’re covered up by happy pop music but a good cover will make you think differently.  Until the Ribbon Breaks does an impressively disturbing cover of “One Way or Another”, originally by Blondie and very clearly about stalking.
5. Purity Ring, a Witch House band (yes, that’s a genre), has a slow, delicate sound to sway to with your eyes closed.  Lead vocals, Megan James, has a child-like high voice and says things you don’t expect to come from her like “Let it seep through your sockets and ears / Into your precious, ruptured skull” but the lyrics really are lovely, I promise.
6. Another female voice that will make your heart slow down is Velvet Underground’s Nico in her solo career in the 1970s. Singing in German and English, Desertshore is like one long and beautiful funeral dirge.
7. For storytelling you can’t do much better than Tom Waits.  “What’s He Building” on Mule Variations will chill you to the bone.  More poem than song, poetry has never been more frightening.



8. Classical music can portray and elicit all emotions, even fear.  Listening to Camille Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre you cannot help but picture skeletons moving in time to Death’s fiddle.
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*If you agree that movie soundtracks can be just as amazing as the images then you will not want to miss the film screening of Danny Elfman performing, with an orchestra, songs from the most beloved Tim Burton films.  Join the all ages audience as we watch the recording from Lincoln Center at the Grand Central Library on October 29 at 2PM.

**If you enjoy spooky things in general then you should check out all of our October programming including a lecture by academic folklorist Jack Santino on the origins and rituals of Halloween on October 17 at 5:30PM at the Grand Central Library.  Also, on October 24 at 5PM at Grand Central we will be screening several 16mm short films of Edgar Allen Poe stories from the Library of Performing Arts collection.

***If we don’t have an artist’s album check out the music database that the library provides access to—Freegal Music. With your library card you get three free song downloads per week (to keep!) and you can stream music for up to three hours.