Sounds of Darkness

Here's a mix I made about 10 years ago (jeez, 10 years already) of some of my favorite dark ambient music. It was inspired tremendously by a Hearts of Space radio show called "The Gathering Gloom".

Please ... let me know what you think in the comments. It'd be tremendous fun to see comments in this blog!

Ambient Halloween Mix

Wade Denning (who passed away near Halloween in 2007) was a big-band composer and arranger in the 40’s and 50’s. For 20 years, he was an arranger for “Ted Mack’s Family Hour” … during that time, he also composed over 550 advertising jingles. In the 60’s and 70’s, he composed music for children with Kay Lande (including a terrific Halloween album). One such recording is this compilation of some classic and some original scary short stories. ...

I have always enjoyed scouring the interwebs for tasty Halloween mixes. There are lots of them out there. LOTS of them. Some of my favorites came from Jason at Scar Stuff, alabamudclay, and Reverend Frost … I think it is tremendous fun to hear the kinds of music people put together, and if background noises are thrown in there as you move from song to song, all the better. It is pretty easy to tell how much time and how much ...

If you enjoyed Spike Jones’ “A Spooktacular in Screaming Sound”, you should like this album from Goodman and Ramal. It has a few parodies on popular music from the period (“The Ghoul from Ipanema” and “Blood and Butter”), along with a few standard Halloween songs (“Monster Mash”, “Haunted House”, “Purple People Eater”).

There are also six original tunes penned by Dickie Goodman and/or Bill Ramal. Some are pretty ...

Like many folks my age, I was introduced to Vincent Price by way of the Brady Bunch … remember that one, where they visit Hawaii? Mr. Price played a lunatic living in a cave who talked to his imaginary friend, Oliver. I was terrified of him (Price, not Oliver). My other early memories of Price are through his voice work for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, and “The Great Mouse Detective”. While he certainly is more famous as a horror ...