#79: Take care of your own darkness
#79: Take care of your own darkness
Band Name Bureau's annual Halloween music roundup
Halloween music is mostly camp. While maybe something kitschier predates 1962’s “Monster Mash,” it set the tone for what followed in the subsequent 60 years. Every October when it’s time to write Band Name Bureau’s Halloween roundup, I wade through myriad novelty songs and compilations of spooky sounds.
I wonder if pagans or satanists scoff at Halloween kitsch and wring their hands about how we’ve lost the “true meaning” of Halloween, like evangelicals who complain about the supposed war on Christmas. “You know, ancient Celtics would sacrifice animals during Samhain,” says this hypothetical goth. “Now people get into fistfights at Home Depot over 12-foot skeletons. Pukah weeps!”
Down in Chile, Spectrumrites keeps it real. Italian label Knekelput released the project’s self-titled cassette on Halloween 2020: “These are authentic recordings of rituals performed without any manipulation,” says the label, which described Spectrumrites as “mystical ritual ambient used as a device to call and channel spirits.” It also urged caution:
WARNING: The calling of spirits is not without risk. We at Knekelput take no responasability [sic] for any averse [sic] effects that may come from playing this cassette in your home.
Spectrumrites said something similar on their Bandcamp:
Warning: The sounds that you will hear can induce nightmares, mystical dreams, extrasensory experiences, hypnosis, among others, take care of your nights, and also take care of your own darkness, because between the flashes of my keyboard not only noisy and primitive sounds travel but also the exact mix of spectral communication, I am not responsible for the spirits that may visit you.
If you play “Awaken Ancestral Conjuration Ritual,” for example, you may reach some unsavory ancestors: your insanely racist great-great-great-grandfather, that one uncle who had a creepy “Lennie from Of Mice and Men” thing going on, some neanderthal relative who lived 40,000 years ago, etc. Be forewarned!
I can find no information about the performer behind Spectrumrites—undoubtedly by design—but their writing is as florid as you’d expect from an über-goth. Here’s an excerpt from a typical Instagram post:
The whispers of the forest envelop my entrails, and my thoughts every day keep me human, longing for my physical body to return to its land.
✸✸✸My eternal return begins✸✸✸
But don’t let that fool you. Like lots of folks who marinate in the macabre, Spectrumrites seems sweet and gracious in videos, like the one below. Gene Simmons would probably have some thoughts about their eye makeup, but then again he’s a bloviating gasbag.
Canada’s Primordial Serpent sees Spectrumrites’ “Awaken Ancestral Conjuration Ritual” and raises them “Conjuration of Destruction”:
That’s off the upcoming Enlightenment Through Impurity—out this Halloween!—featuring soon-to-be faves like “Absurdity in Speaking in Tongues,” “A Ritual of Dedication,” and “Outro (Whispers of Sorrow and Grief).” If none of those sound interesting, Geoff Coran has probably written another album while you’ve been reading this. Since debuting the project—possibly named after characters from Dark Souls?—in 2020, he’s dropped nine full-lengths, four EPs, five splits, and 14 singles, per Encyclopaedia Metallum. I guess we know what Geoff did during lockdown. And if he ever crosses paths with Spectrumrites, they can compare face paint.
That photo actually segues well with the cover for Cat Temper’s Meow at the Moon. They stare off into the same direction, and though I can’t confirm it, I bet Geoff is wearing a pentagram necklace in the above pic.
Here’s where their paths diverge, as this Boston one-man group plays “synthwave with cattitude!” and employs many, many, so many puns. The description of Meow at the Moon offers a taste…
It’s not just cat scratch fever when an ancient curse causes friendly felines to transform into fearsome beasts in the light of the full moon. They’ll do more than bite the hand that feeds them as unwitting humans find out who is master and who is prey. But those lucky to escape the claws of their cattackers are doomed to walk among the whiskered!
…but Cat Temper’s discography provides a gut-busting buffet. Included are a variety of tribute albums: Kitty Hate Machine (featuring “The Meoward Spiral”), Furio (including “Growls on Film” and “Please Please Tell Me Meow”), Cat Out of Hell (“Purradise By the Dashboard Light,” naturally), along with a bunch of songs like “Impawster Syndrome,” “Deth Leopard,” “Purranoid”… this whole newsletter could just be a list of their punny song titles.
Puns are one thing, but Cat Temper’s graphic design is on point.
Let no one doubt their dedication to shtick!
Hey, remember how you asked for a ska version of “Thriller”? Shh, I don’t have time to hear your response.
As a bonus, here are ska versions “Monster Mash,” “Time Warp,” “This is Halloween,” and a whole bunch of others.
In a similar vein but more on the mash-up side is djsunnysideup’s Gangster Halloween. I mean, the best gangsta Halloween track of all time is the Geto Boys’ “Mind Playing Tricks on Me,” but this album art is pretty great:
Gangster Halloween does stuff like take the score from The Exorcist and mix it with Gangsta Boo and Three 6 Mafia. There’s also the Unsolved Mysteries theme with Lo-Key? vocals, the Specials mixed with Ginuwine, and a lot of stuff that kinda works but not quite.
Speaking of kinda working but not quite, what’s your take on pineapple as a pizza topping? Italian artist Vincenzo Salvia has strong feelings on the matter on his horror EP, The Pineapple Pizza Slayer.
Like Spectrumrites, it too comes with a warning:
CAUTION: PINEAPPLE IS NOT A PIZZA TOPPING.
The three instrumental tracks, “Ghosts in the Oven,” “Zombie Pizza Guy,” and “The Pineapple Pizza Slayer,” have an undeniably ’80s synth-rock sound, so it’s not surprising that Salvia had a song featured in the third season of Stranger Things. Apparently it soundtracked the pool scene between Billy and Mrs. Wheeler, which makes sense because the song is vaguely porny—and so is this still from that episode:
POST-SCRIPTS
This Kitty Hate Machine shirt is pretty great:
Everyone loves to bag on ska-punk, but those Holophonics tracks are fun. It looks like cover albums—or, uh, “MaSKArades”—are their thing. They have multiple volumes, including a reinterpretation of Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity! 🤯
“Conjuration of Destruction” is kinda awesome? Way more melodic than I expected.
Coming next month: the usual bullshit and the annual BNB thanks list!