“Halloween” (Used 9 times)

The FMA returns this year with more legal downloads for the Halloween holiday.  This time around we've got some sinister classical favorites, 8bit Dario Argento film scores, Peter Lorre interpreted via twisted circuit benders, and some frighteningly bad tunes from America's premier mass murdering folk troubadour.  Be sure to check out the Halloween mixes from 2009 and 2010 for more copylefted Halloween spookiness.  Big thanks to the FMA community for all the great suggestions!

A stormy night pushes you to toward a huge and dark house belonging to the reclusive Dr. Slocum, a mysterious genius who converted a closed asylum into an evil labratory, where he hides from the world with his menage of monsters of science.  But the ghosts that haunted the asylum are still there...

Once inside you hear ghostly pianos with no-one playing them, strange moans and cries of terror, floating spirits, dark and empty operating chambers, and more than one dungeon inhabited by abandoned 'experiments'...

Ok, cheesy description aside...

...you always see those "Sounds of Horror" CDs for sale in the shops during Halloween, and most of the time they are of the 'overdoing-it' variety in design.  They are always more comical or cartoony, than actually scary.

So Lee Rosevere designed this nearly 45 minute spooky-suite of truly unsettling and disturbing sounds, free to use for all your Halloween purposes.

Listening on headphones will prove the most rewarding (and creepy) experience, but it's also great for putting in the front window of your house to add eerie ambience during the trick-or-treating hours. 

It is intended for non-commercial use, but if you are holding a charity event and would like to use it, please be our guest.

Happy haunting! 

photo by Shoes On Wires

Just in time for Halloween, the FMA debuts Home of the Brave, the first new album in 13 years from The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. TVHOKB is an avant-garde/theatrical/punk/metal project (think The Plasmatics and Alice Cooper) founded in 1990 by NYC artists Samoa and Kembra Pfahler. From their performance at the 2008 Whitney Biennial:

Pfahler and Samoa formed The Voluptuous Horror in 1990 after ten years of making Super 8 horror films and visual and performance art that they felt would benefit from a musical soundtrack...Named in honor of cult horror film heroine Karen Black, Pfahler’s band performs heavy-bottomed punk-metal songs amid elaborate hand-constructed sets where she engages an animalistic, fetishistic practice of acting out transgressive physical feats

While Pfahler's vocals and lyrics bring a trash-art/theatrical element ("I suck the shit out of your ass / to get on TV" she sings in Actresstocracy), musically this album smokes a modern-ized strain of classic hard rock bordering on metal and glam. The music's composed by bassist Adam Cardone (of the Toilet Boys). Magal drums with "pure carnal power" and Dave Weston shreds on guitar.

The Voluptuous Horror is best experienced live, and NYC locals can catch an all-ages show at Santos Party House [UPDATE: Don Hill's due to this] along with Hussle Club and Karen Black co-founder Samoa.

   >> Home of the Brave [full album]

Having drained the FMA of CC-licensed spookiness for last year’s Creative Commons Halloween mix, this year I prowled the net-label databases of the internet in search of fresh mp3s.  My ears were satiated with an aural smorgasbord of horror film soundtrack tributes and audio collages, eerie theremins, bewitching women, and countless cookie monster voiced death metal front men warning of the impending zombie apocalypse.  Click the "i" for more info about the artists and CC licenses. Have fun, and remember to be safe.