Songs Of Discomposure: Quietus Writers Pick Their Most Disturbing Pieces Of Music

No Penderecki?

The Cockfighter is great too and always reminds me of this post of yore:

uh, the first time i listened to Scott Walker's "Tilt" was with my friend whose last musical obsession was Bobby McFerrin. after enduring all his "what is this shit?" and "This sounds like The Phantom of the Opera on crack" comments during the first track, i convinced him to give at least the next track "the cockfighter" a shot. anyway, after turning the volume way up during the first minute or so of indescript mumbling and shuffling noises, we were then blown away by the screaming locust wall of yell and chaos around a minute and a half. we both started screaming, the car started swerving, we almost got into an accident, we had to pull over, and i was never allowed to put another cd on in his car.

― methanie tanner (methanie tanner), Wednesday, September 27, 2006 3:45 AM (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I suppose I'm not easily disturbed. There is a style of music that is made up of high-pitched electronic sounds that is very painful for me to listen to. I believe a lot of the artists or musicians are from Japan. I tried Googling the genre to no avail.

Onkyo! - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkyokei. Can be quite painful, although nowhere near Maryanne Amacher levels. Speaking of which, she gets my vote for actually giving me a panic attack while listening to her Tzadik CD on headphones, due to the frequencies making my inner ear oscillate in an unexpected manner. I forget which piece it was and haven't dared listen again.

this hilarious one was always my favorite from the extreme music comp:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdTS7YDvLBY

didn't know it was its own genre though.

"need" from kathy heideman's "move with love" also seems disturbing to me

vibing up the senile man is pretty awesome, just dudes shouting and ranting against "eerie" noises and stuff

the Maurizio Bianchi stuff I heard on Spotify was excellent, just these reverberating muffled explosion sounds bouncing around, cool as hell

lol I was gonna post my anecdote about The Cockfighter but I see Gavin has already quoted a post I did about it 11 years ago. nice.

100% I think the work of modernist/micropolyphonicists like Ligeti and Penderecki is meant to be religious, that is, comfort music, I'm always amazed at when like Lynch uses this music as a signifier for "DISTURBING!" because the collection of pure acoustic pitches and sound walls just feels to me like gazing into a telescope or reading about Calvinism

Similarly, even though Scott Walker set out to create The Most Disturbing Recorded Piece Of Music Ever with "The Escape"-- and he succeeded-- I don't find anything particularly disturbing about the goosebumps and scare-moments that that song has and will still elicit, it's the aural equivalent of a perfect horror movie and there is nothing disturbing about a piece of music that successfully elicits the emotional sensations the author has attempted to elicit, even if those emotions are "fear"

Surprised that Berg isn't on this list, the final couple scene of Wozzeck are the best examples of "music designed to disturb"

Frankie Teardrop to me is just like a fun roller coaster wheeeee my emotions

What disturbs me I guess is music that makes the very act of music-making and music-listening seem cultureless, and futile, an extension of nationalistic jingoism (patriotic country music), co-opting of political text (nu Katy Perry), exhibitions of laziness-as-depth or personal-anecdote-as-artist-statement (William Basinski)

The most disturbing piece of music in my world is Cat Stevens' "Wild World" I think, or maybe "Party In The USA" or something from Rent. Of this list, I'm voting Magnetic Fields "I Thought You Were My Boyfriend" for the big lie that is that band, and how depressed it makes me about homosexuality and gay culture and New York City and money.

The most disturbing piece of music I've ever encountered was a 2nd-year composition student who was telling me about a piece he'd had performed where one of the movements in this otherwise straightforward non-postmodern exercise was free of content, that the 4th movement was simply left blank, and he was telling me about this piece and it was horrifying to view the expectation of a reaction on his face, and made me feel awful about the musicians he'd had to have put through that ordeal

Oh also Schnittke "Symphony #1" because that asshole wanted to "reconcile pop music and serious music if it killed him" and so he assembled a collection of vignettes of the entire history of 20th century music to be performed by a symphony in a concert hall, removing all history and context of all these genres and museum-ing them for a starched and seated crowd, that is the death of everything I've enjoyed in life and if Alfred wasn't dead I'd probably murder him for making a piece as disturbing and misguided and sociopathic as that piece of music

when it comes to the john phillips thing of "songs by musicians who also happened to be genuinely wicked people", there's bruce haack's "haackula". maybe he wasn't a child molester but whatever he did people aren't willing to talk about, and whenever stuff like that happens i just wind up assuming "child molester", especially since "haackula" is a really messed up album. graham bond was also a child molester, but none of his satan stuff like "love is the law" comes off as evil or disturbing or anything like that, and i think it's a mistake to draw too close an association there. like people think gesualdo's music is "disturbing" because he butchered his wife (actually he made his servants do most of the work, which is a little bit more disturbing than if he'd killed her personally), but from what i can tell it's more that the diatonic system wasn't established yet and that freaks people out.

when i first heard the last couple scenes of "wozzeck" i just thought it was badass. but i was much younger then.

i'm not disturbed by schnittke's first symphony, i just don't like it. i guess i'd be more disturbed if it worked. i like his "concerto for choir" all right.

Oh god Schnittke makes me want to find a job vacuuming up the ashes of human remains, I hate him so much. Conductor solos? A sophomoric knowledge of How Harmony Works so that all his pomo bullshit is not just evil, but badly made also? The fact that every string quartet in the world stans for his bullshit non-pomo work and talk about him to impress you? I want to die

I'm meditating right now breathing in "Charles" and breathing out "Ives" because I need some respite rn

100% I think the work of modernist/micropolyphonicists like Ligeti and Penderecki is meant to be religious, that is, comfort music, I'm always amazed at when like Lynch uses this music as a signifier for "DISTURBING!" because the collection of pure acoustic pitches and sound walls just feels to me like gazing into a telescope or reading about Calvinism

otm

rushomancy also otm re: bruce haack

Peter Blegvad - Irma

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wn-qyDlcPY

It's like living inside Catherine Deneuve's head in Repulsion

Voted for Donald Duck.

what are the stories around haack?

I have never heard any of these Haack stories either

I mostly get irritated by "disturbing" so I'm not the best judge for this stuff but someone preferring Simone to Holiday on Strange Fruit is just baffling. Everything genuinely gut-wrenching in Holiday's version gets turned into this cartoon version of horror by Simone.

Matt #2, yes, that's the one! Thank you!

I always considered myself an adventurous music listener but that's where I draw the line. I don't even want to listen to one of those musicians to confirm it really is that genre. Too painful! I have visited the ENT and have what I think is a strong understanding of what is going on with my hearing and ears. Because of my involvement in music for most of my life, I have developed a very sensitive ear to a very broad range of frequencies, so even day to day sounds are a little jarring if they hit the right range. It's a gift and a curse.

Someone mentioned Berg. I find his music quite playful and wonderful, actually, but not something I can listen to in long periods because I get listener fatigue from it. I think it's because my brain is trying to reorganize the tones into a particular structure or a form it previously knows but can't find it due to the nature of Berg's pieces.

Penderecki's Threnody, on the other hand, does seem "catastrophic," as he describes it, and just filled with terror to me.

when it comes to "apocalyptic" classical karel husa's "apotheosis of this earth" hits me hardest

the point about haack is that there _are_ no stories anybody tells. it's all just hints and innuendo. people say that he was a troubled man who really loved children. there's an obvious conclusion statements like that (both obviously correct) lead me to, and if that conclusion is wrong, nobody who would know seems to have an interest in _saying_ it's wrong.

There are some really good suggestions above but then there are some really good suggestions on our list as well, even if most of our list doesn't leave me with horripilation myself. I can't speak to what other people find disturbing - it's too much of a subjective issue. For example I find nearly all power electronics and harsh wall noise either irritating or mildly funny but I get why other people might feel differently - it's not that great a leap of the imagination.

However I did pick Richard Dawson's Poor Old Horse and will defend my choice.

As I said in the capsule, it's nothing to do with the violence meted out to the nag compared to how funny it is and any feelings of self-disgust this may inspire but the sense of disquietude that seeps out during the final verse (“Now each he goes his separate path/ For a cup full of ale or a nice hot bath/ A kiss on the lips of a wife newly wed/ Or a look at the baby sleeping in bed.”) The song is ostensibly about three men beating a horse to death but it's also about the violence of men in general and how this affects their families and how it's passed on from each generation to the next. I think there are certain groups of people that have very specific first hand experiences of violence which may make this song resonate with them in a way it doesn't with other listeners (regardless of their feelings about man on horse violence).

There was a lot of talk between Luke and I in the office concerning TG. Both of us toyed with including them but *generally speaking* we find their music to have too much of a humorous aspect. I think Hamburger Lady is a grotesque song and worthy of inclusion in such a list... I probably would have gone for Very Friendly over it though, which has a specific resonance to people, like me, who were children growing up in England in the 1970s - Ian Brady underwent testing at the Scott Clinic on the grounds of Rainhill Psychiatric Hospital about a mile away from where I grew up and I was always aware of these people without really understanding what the Moors Murderers had done. Now there's a lot of humour in Coil as well but both of us would rep for them as making disturbing music over TG simply because of specific autobiographical details. The pair of Musick To Play In The Dark albums might strike a lot of people as being the very antithesis of disturbing music ("Whoooooo! Scary arboreal synth music!") But a track like 'Ether' puts the fear of God into me precisely because it speaks directly to some of my experiences of chronic alcoholism in a very visceral and terrifying way - however I wouldn't necessarily expect other people to feel the same way. I've never been a victim of third degree burns or met anyone who has been so Hamburger Lady has less of a grip on me despite being obviously quite a tough listen.

ok, now this is fucked up. i mean, you know, internet. but i google "hamburger lady" and this comes up:

http://www.scaryforkids.com/hamburger-lady/

i know the kids love creepypasta and so on, but what the hell kind of sick fuck is suggesting that children should listen to "hamburger lady"?

John, I started this thread wholly because I loved the idea and execution of it on tQ. And also because the question invites very open and diverse answers. For that - and not just for that, but today specifically for that - I applaud what tQ does and continues to do. It's subjective, it's inviting, it dodges usual suspects. It inspires and invokes.

Just want to say that to you/tQ, regardless of this thread.

What disturbs me I guess is music that makes the very act of music-making and music-listening seem cultureless, and futile, an extension of nationalistic jingoism (patriotic country music), co-opting of political text (nu Katy Perry), exhibitions of laziness-as-depth or personal-anecdote-as-artist-statement (William Basinski)

Sorry, are you really saying that Katy Perry's recent performatively woke material actually "disturbs" you? Because I'm going to need a bit more justification to back that up. Which political text is she co-opting in 'Chained To The Rhythm' and why is it dangerous?

Le Bateau Ivre - well, hot damn! That's a fine thing for you to say, thanks! They don't *always* come off as well these features - the guilty pleasures one was arguably a misstep even - but I was very happy with this one.

that lisa germano one with the the scary phone message on it used to shake me up. ugh. i could have used a trigger warning when i bought that album.

that album is a genuinely disturbing work of art. in my opinion. it goes to a lot of dark places that a lot of those bondage-loving noize boyz could never attempt to go.

@ scott yes that is a disturbing album, mostly for me for the recurring "comic relief" pseudo-klezmer moments that keep coming back and just make me feel like I'm having an episode

@ CaAL can't tell you what texts "Chained To The Rhythm" is co-opting but yes yes the adoption of anti-bourgeois sentiment turned into a generalized railing against "dance music spaces" (?) I guess (?) availability of living spaces (?) I guess (?) for the purposes of capital accumulation of Katy Perry Inc. is inherently dangerous, absolutely dangerous, deeply cynical, are you joking? I hear Diamanda Galas screaming Hebrews and I feel like "this woman has my back". Katy Perry would eat me for dinner

I totally forget what it sounds like, but there was an album called "Kaddish" by a group called Towering Inferno that Eno branded "the most frightening record I have ever heard."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaddish_(Towering_Inferno_album)

third ear band. had a reaction similar to whoever did the write-up

100% I think the work of modernist/micropolyphonicists like Ligeti and Penderecki is meant to be religious, that is, comfort music, I'm always amazed at when like Lynch uses this music as a signifier for "DISTURBING!" because the collection of pure acoustic pitches and sound walls just feels to me like gazing into a telescope or reading about Calvinism

Really enjoying this take (although, heh, the piece was called Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima tbf). I tried to say something similar about guitar noise in indie rock in a pop music class at York (and was only being semi-challopsy) and the prof had everyone explain to me how I was deluding myself.

Third Ear Band album just makes me think of Keith Chegwin.

I still have that Towering Inferno record, it's pretty great but I wouldn't call it frightening exactly. The multimedia show that went with it was incredible.

xps

Fgti bringing the heat to this thread.

@ Sund4r, can't back this up but I was told by my comp prof that Penderecki rather cynically admitted to simply tacking on that title!

And yeah, I had similar discussions w my profs about noise and its function. Interestingly I think the ear's relationship to dissonance changes over time. I may have said this elsewhere, but at age 18 I found Stockhausen impenetrable. Now, it's my comfort music. The only thing I've ever heard which was so dissonant that I had to turn it off (and I've never actually got through it) is Ventolin

Fwiw, it's true that the original title was 8'37", which Penderecki changed after the piece had already been performed. I wonder if it was a legend among composition profs of a certain generation that Penderecki admitted to tacking on the title as some sort of cynical marketing/promotional move. I heard it from my undergrad prof too but I haven't found a convincing source for it. In The Rest Is Noise, Ross did write that [Communist Polish] "officialdom only took a favourable view" of the piece after someone suggested the new title, though he makes no suggestion that Penderecki intentionally did this to curry favour with the authorities. Auner just writes that it reflected Penderecki's ongoing interest in connecting his music to political and social issues.

the third ear band is interesting because i don't listen to the macbeth soundtrack that much - i listen to their first album and "the magus", which are very different albums and excellent albums but neither of which i would term "disturbing". i just think of them as the best raga-rock band. but that title track is indeed pretty disturbing; should probably give the whole thing a listen.

i have a copy of "kaddish" somewhere. it mainly came off as "arty british record about the holocaust". which is fine and all but i don't know what precisely it adds to our collective understanding of that event.

"The boiler" lyrically
Either Residents or V/VM musically.

@ CaAL can't tell you what texts "Chained To The Rhythm" is co-opting but yes yes the adoption of anti-bourgeois sentiment turned into a generalized railing against "dance music spaces" (?) I guess (?) availability of living spaces (?) I guess (?) for the purposes of capital accumulation of Katy Perry Inc. is inherently dangerous, absolutely dangerous, deeply cynical, are you joking? I hear Diamanda Galas screaming Hebrews and I feel like "this woman has my back". Katy Perry would eat me for dinner

Not in here because it's in Spanish but one of the most disturbing songs I heard growing up was "Alarmala de Tos" by Cafe Tacuba a cover of Botellita de Jerez.

The song's lyrics are so perverse but that was Botellita de Jerez schtick they were setting on to be one of the most hated bands in latinamerica. I don't know which version is more disturbing the original one is very chirpy like a 50's 60's rock song hiding hideous lyrics, cafe tacuba takes the lyrics at face value and pairs it with much more sinister ambience.

I'll try to translate it for you in a bit.

Not in here because it's in Spanish but one of the most disturbing songs I heard growing up was "Alarmala de Tos" by Cafe Tacuba a cover of Botellita de Jerez.

The song's lyrics are so perverse but that was Botellita de Jerez schtick they were setting on to be one of the most hated bands in latinamerica. I don't know which version is more disturbing the original one is very chirpy like a 50's 60's rock song hiding hideous lyrics, cafe tacuba takes the lyrics at face value and pairs it with much more sinister ambience.

I'll try to translate it for you in a bit.

La Lola, paciente mendigaba,
Sufría, su jefe la obligaba
Con ella, sacaba buena lana
La pobre era jorobada
Su madre, le metía al talón,
Era perversa, y de mal corazón
Su hermano, vivía en el reventon
El era el filo, amante de un pasión
Ese día, pasaba normalmente,
Cuando su padre, atacola de repente,
Violola, con un deseo demente,
Y ella quiso, morirse en ese instante,
Mato a su padre, cuando este la seguía
Mientras su hermano, con su madre le ponía,
Pensó que ayuda, jamas encontraría,
Hasta que al fin, hallo un policía
Alarma, Alarmala de tos,
Uno, dos, tres,
Patada y cos,
La Lola, su historia lloro,
Y auxilio al "tira" imploro
El azul, sonriendo la miro
Que creen que fue lo que paso
Que paso?
Siguiola, atacola, golpeola, violola y matola con una pistola
Alarma, Alarmala de tos,
Uno, dos, tres,
Patada y cos,
Alarma

Hard song to translate as there's too much wordplay and some invented words like 'ALARMALA' and "COS". There's no easy way to translate the title and chorus to english 'alarmala de tos' is a word play on alarma (alarm) and 'armala de tos" which google would translate as "make a cough" as that is the literal translation but it's a phrase that would actually translate as 'create a problem'... like say if you're mad at someone and you would look to pick up a fight him that's what 'armarla de tos' means roughly.

Anyways here it goes:

Lola was a patient beggar
she suffered, his father forced her
with her she made some good money
the poor girl was humped.
Her mother would make her trip when walking
She was perverse, with a bad hear.
Her brother was always partying
he was 'el filo' (no idea what this means), lover of a fat man.
That day felt like a normal day for her
Until his father started attacking her
He raped her with an insane desire
and she felt like dying at that moment
She killed her father while he was following her
while in the other room her brother and mother were fucking
She thought she would never find any help
but then she found a policeman

Alarm, Alarmala de tos
one two three, a kick and cos

Lola cried her story to him
and 'help' to the 'tira' she implored (tira is slang for police)
the blue man, smiling looked at her.
What do you think happened next?
He followed her, he attacked her, he hitted her, he raped her and he killed her.
With his gun.

Alarm, Alarmala de tos
one two three, a kick and cos

Her mother would make her trip when walking
She was perverse, with a bad heart.

not sure about the translation to this one actually. In spanish it literally says 'She put her heel in her' but we say 'le metio el pie / put the feet" when you make someone trip... odd thing is you always use 'feet' not 'heel' when using this phrase... I dunno considering how perverse the rest of the song is it might be something sexual.

The only thing I've ever heard which was so dissonant that I had to turn it off (and I've never actually got through it) is Ventolin

:) i went thru a phase of cranking "Ventolin" thru headphones cos it felt beautifully cathartic/calming

The weird thing about this song is that it's lyrics are horrid but it would play on the radio. It was fairly popular back in the 90's when cafe tacuba covered it.

The only thing I've ever heard which was so dissonant that I had to turn it off (and I've never actually got through it) is Ventolin

:) i went thru a phase of cranking "Ventolin" thru headphones cos it felt beautifully cathartic/calming

― be the cringe you want to see in the world (Noodle Vague), Sunday, September 24, 2017 6:06 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'll happily listen to that song through speakers but usually skip it if I'm listening on earphones, always feels like a recipe for instant tinnitus.

Thinking of that album I also remember jumping out my skin at the "ALRIGHT?!" at the beginning of 'Cow Cud Is a Twin' the first time I heard it.

That seems like a strong candidate, Moka.

Do you have a Spotify/YouTube link Moka?

Sure. This is the original Botellita de Jerez one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2BJD2qLNxI

And this is the more popular Cafe Tacuba cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl3oooLM9R8

They sound like two very different songs.