SuppliedThis year, Halloween has the misfortune of falling on that most bummer of days: Monday. This means that on the day itself, you’re more likely to be holed up in bed trying to recover from exam stress than going out and painting the town red. But fear not (or do), The Gateway is here to ensure your Halloween naptime is sufficiently spooked out with this collection of creepy ambient albums guaranteed to give you the chills while you chill out. As a courtesy to the faint-hearted, this list is scaled according to difficulty, from easiest to hardest. If you make it to the bottom of this thing, you’re a certified trooper. Enjoy!
Boards of Canada
Geogaddi
Warp
https://warp.net/artists/boards-of-canada/
Don’t let the sunny cover art, and downtempo vibes fool you, Geogaddi is pure menace. For an hour, the Scottish IDM duo drag the listener through an eerie dream world filled with disembodied voices, Russian number stations, and subliminal occult references. Don’t miss the part where a guy recites a Satanic incantation as a woman screams in the background — in reverse! If this album had come out during the Satanic Panic, you bet your sweet bippy that Tipper Gore would have flipped her lid. Remember Salad Fingers? Y’know, from 2007? Those videos were littered with Geogaddi snippets. Enough said.
Difficulty Level: Reading one too many Creepypasta’s while waiting on your own for the bus.
Shackleton
Music for the Quiet Hour
Woe to the Septic Heart!
https://www.facebook.com/Shackleton-354914831195687/
You’d be hard-pressed to find a Shackleton release that wouldn’t qualify for this list, but this 2012 offering is his most spine-chilling work by far. Music for the Quiet Hour is, in fact, a single enormous composition that sees the British producer deftly weaving through a labyrinth of weirdo sound design, with his nimble programming often sounding like a zombie version of the Cantina band from Star Wars. Bonus spook: the album’s spoken-word centerpiece is a combination time-paradox sci-fi poem/political manifesto that seems like it was written by the type of guy who complains that Gravity’s Rainbow is “too accessible.” Yikes!
Difficulty Level: Sitting patiently as your TA explains his entire thesis to you in minute detail.
Aphex Twin
Selected Ambient Works Vol. II
Warp
https://warp.net/artists/aphex-twin/
Rightly hailed as a genre landmark, the grand poobah of modern ambient music is less-frequently remembered for also being creepy as shit. Don’t be fooled by serene cuts like “Rhubarb” or “Blue Calx,” listening to SAW II mostly feels like dropping acid and running through a hall of funhouse mirrors, and not in a good way. It figures that Richard D. James was heavily inspired by his lucid dreams while making the album, because god knows what someone who looks like this must dream about. In the age of Spotify, though, the scariest thing about it might be its runtime. If you can make it through all two-and-a-half (!!!) hours of this thing in one go, you may want to seriously reevaluate your life.
Difficulty Level: Popping two Nyquil and trying to fall asleep while listening to The Beatles’ “Revolution 9” on repeat.
The Haxan Cloak
Excavation
Tri Angle
https://www.facebook.com/thehaxancloak/
This 2013 album from electronic maestro and Bjork-collaborator Haxan Cloak (aka Bobby Krlic) is supposedly a concept record about an individual’s journey through the afterlife. Personally, if the afterlife sounds like anything like Excavation, I want nothing to do with it. From its opening seconds, the album is creepier than a sleepover in a crypt, and wastes no time plummeting the listener into a harrowing thrill-ride filled to the brim with eerie soundscapes and psychoacoustic skullduggery. A horror movie soundtrack without visuals, Excavation might be the only album that requires a nightlight to make it through with your soul intact.
Difficulty Level: Riding a rollercoaster and realizing the screws on your shoulder harness are loose as you’re about to go down the hill.
Pharmakon
Bestial Burden
Sacred Bones
https://www.sacredbonesrecords.com/collections/pharmakon
Okay, so this is stretching the definition of “ambient,” but it’s still about the furthest thing from a toe-tapper as you can get. Fueled by her experience recovering from major emergency surgery, noise artist Margaret Chardiet made arguably one of the most difficult listening experiences there is, shy of setting audio from a slaughterhouse floor as your morning alarm. From the blaring walls of static and gloomy percussion to Chardiet’s throat-shredding vocals, Bestial Burden is truly horrific. If you want your Halloween jams to sound like a fire drill at the Chainsaw & Malfunctioning Accordion factory, this one’s for you.
Difficulty Level: “Fuck it, just cut me into tiny pieces and put my innards in a quiche.”
