#SoundWorld

[soundworlds]

Welcome to the alternate universe of Underhand!

@zarla-s - HandPlates

@soundworlds - UnderHand

This universe was created on the theme of AU Undertale, but it has a close connection with the theme of Handplates, I would say something similar to a parallel version if Dr. Gaster "existed" a third subject, the so-called 3-Y, or otherwise 3-A. In other words, when Gaster did not expect the appearance of his "third creation" at all, under no circumstances, and the damaged capsule decided for him, which created one of the previous two subjects (1-S and 2-P).

Which character do I pay the most attention to? Absolutely right, 3-A, since she is a heroine is full of riddles and mysteries, despite the fact that we know the three characters themselves quite well as Gaster, 1-S and 2-P. We know their relationship to each other, their opinions on life and the story monsters and humans, their abilities and many other factors, but not the 3-A itself, which is part of this Underhand franchise.

I'm sorry that the 3-A physique is closer to the male type, but I'm still learning how to draw similar characters, so don't throw "BONES" at me. Anyway, this is only the first time I'm drawing my characters on the Undertale theme, heh. -ˊ▿ˋ-"

[johnoestmannmusic]

All Soundworlds albums moved to Public Domain!

The truth of culture is that it spreads and evolves freely. Released into the Public Domain / CC0. Free to access, study, remix and reuse. Attribution is appreciated, but not required.

Access them here: https://johnoestmann.bandcamp.com/music

Some of the newer project source files can be found here: https://github.com/Soundworlds-JO/Soundworlds-Datapedia

[sataroy]

[mikrokosmos]

Fendrix - Soundtrack for the film Poor Things (2023)

I've probably said this before but I usually don't post film music on this blog. Mainly because it's questionable how much a score for a film could be considered "classical" or of the classical tradition. On the one hand, the kinds of genre and styles used for films, and the specific function of the music as accentuating or being part of the overall finished work of the film makes it out to be its own unique genre. On the other hand, classical composers in history have written incidental music for stage plays as well as scores for films, from early / classic film scores by Saint-Saëns or Prokofiev or later in the century by Takemitsu or Glass and going through to today. Regardless I had heard this music before seeing the film Poor Things and was immediately taken in. I loved it so much that I was disappointed that it did not win the Oscar for best film score this weekend (though I won't complain much because the winning score by Ludwig Göransson for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer was evocative and intense so it was worthy of the award and praise). Still I have a soft spot for Jerskin Fendrix's imaginative and otherworldly music fitting for the equally "otherworldly" and fantastical atmosphere that the world of Poor Things tries to evoke. Yorgos Lanthimos is one of my favorite living directors and I was excited to see this film, even moreso after hearing the score. While I love the exuberant style, unique cinematography, and the dreamlike images, I will admit I was somewhat disappointed by the film overall (I didn't love it as much as I did his 2018 film The Favourite), and am still uneasy and disturbed by the subject matter and implications of an infant/prepubescent mind developing in the body of an adult woman, and all of the uncomfortable sex scenes and conversations as the film goes along. Still, I do love this score as a stand-alone album. Bella's theme is awkward, slightly out of tune and discordant, conveying the kind of naivety, curiosity, and somewhat self consciousness of being a "child" trying to understand the world they live in. The score continues with keyboard textures, detuned harps and winds, scratchy violins, vocalized oos and ahs, creating a lot of artificial and even alien sounds that disorients the listener in the same way that the wide lenses and porthole shots disorient the viewer. And later in the film (mild spoiler alert) when "Bella's" "real husband" arrives, we are made to feel sick and unsettled by the low frequency pulsing that makes us dread his arrival. A lot of textures and harmonies are unexpected in ways that make me wish Stravinsky were still alive so he could hear and share his thoughts. I especially thought of Stravinsky with my personal favorite track, "Portuguese Dance II", with violent and punchy, comically disturbed accordion chords that open into a catchy dance tune which may as well have come from one of his ballets. This same music gets its own awkward dance scene (another Lanthimos trademark) with Emma Stone's Bella and Mark Ruffalo's despicable Duncan. Again this is a bit different from my usual posts but regardless I hope you can enjoy the bizarre and wonderful soundworld that Fendrix created for this film.

[goodbysunball]

August 2024: Habitual socialite

Another delay-ridden post, this one gestating for about a month now, or at least mid-July's when I took the picture above.

Lucky for you there's a fix: Doug Mosurock, formerly of @still-single, is back up and running reviews at Heathen Disco. Doug's the real deal, an obvious influence on this withering Tumblr blog, and his short/sweet review digest, delivered once or twice a week, is well worth a (free, for now) subscription. The onslaught of reviews have hipped me to that CHBB reissue, and I'm sure there'll be a bunch more.

Onto the records, heavy on the punk and hardcore this round ---

Bad Breeding, Contempt LP (Iron Lung/One Little Independent)

Bad Breeding are back to crash your dinner party, armed with exhaustive pamphlets and not letting up on arguments about housing crises well past the point of decor. They have been singularly adept at cataloging the damaged, bleak, backwards, corrupt and blind state of the world, and have done so across a set of blistering LPs and their accompanying essays. Exiled is still my favorite, but I thought the band stumbled a bit on the follow-up Human Capital. The long tracks on Human Capital feel every bit their length, but listening back today, I think "Joyride," "Arc Eye" and "Straw Man" buoy the album with ease around the title track and "Rebuilding." Contempt could be considered a much sharper version of Human Capital, ripe with feedback, near-metal riffing and righteous fury as before, but still extending track lengths with mixed results. The best part of the album, and maybe of Bad Breeding's discography to date, is "Liberty" into "Discipline": the former cold-worked into a frenzied noise over two pummeling minutes, and the latter doing the most with drums, feedback and barked vocals, fighting desperately against being swallowed whole. While they don't touch that peak again on the album (and not many could), "Temple of Victory" and "Vacant Paradise" are furious pounding tracks that, when isolated from the album, pack some real heat. Over the course of the record, the band's relentless sound can wipe out distinctions between tracks, or worse, as on the second half of "Guilded Cage / Sanctuary," drag the momentum to a complete halt. Those minor quibbles shouldn't deface what is an album full of the mid-tempo, bass-heavy, feedback-laden hardcore I'd prefer to hear, and in any case "Guilded Cage" fuckin' smokes. I'd take an album full of "Survival"s or "Retribution"s if it meant more punks railing against the systems in place as Bad Breeding so fervently advocates, rather than against like-minded (or not) peers. Maybe Contempt is asking too much of the discerning public, or maybe the earnestness is a turnoff, because the record can feel easy to dismiss as too reflective of what we can read about or experience without much effort every day. But there remains a fire within the record that feels vital, even if it's not the soundworld I want to enter every day. I think it's one of the best records of the year, not because it has to be, but because the band clawed and teared their way there, producing a ferocious album/package that digs deeply into the late-stage capitalist system we all suffer from. Contempt's not the solution, but it might well inspire it.

Klonns, Heaven LP (Iron Lung/Black Hole)

The most recent Deep Voices post had an interesting dive into perfection vs. originality in music, and Heaven is swinging for perfection in a genre more often satisfied with filth and murk. Here's a rare hardcore record that sounds polished, barely smudged with experimental touches on the edges, and emerging fully formed and fun as hell. Now labeling their sound "The new wave of Japanese hardcore," Klonns are near-bulletproof across Heaven, so much so that I somehow don't mind when they pull out a "GO!" vocal command every track. Gruff, raspy but still intelligible vocals sit comfortably on top of near-metallic riffs and drums that flash just enough to make sure you keep a distance. The resulting sound is roomy and comfortable, like an old hoodie, but with the sleeves cut off and reeking of VFW hall floors. I'll point you straight to "Beherit"/"Realm," the breakdown on the former serving as a primer for the guest vocals of Sailor Kannako ripping apart the end of the latter. The bruising riff at the end of "Nemesis" or the finale to "Replica" sound like a finely honed point rather than emulation: this is a band focused on what makes hardcore vital to them and executing it nearly flawlessly. The electronic intro/outro portions are nice touches to bookend an LP's worth of evidence of what a supportive punk scene can produce when everyone's aimed in the same direction. Sick and wildly unpretentious LP, beautifully packaged and bursting at the seams with music that begs to be experienced live. Maybe someday, but for now, this'll do.

Osbo, s/t 7" (Blow Blood)

A "gritty, modern classic of a hardcore record" you say? I'm as numb to label write-ups for their own records as anyone at this point but that's still a bold gambit to throw down, along with the Cold Sweat RIYL, but Blow Blood rules so here I am. I don't really think many have come close to Blinded except for that way under-appreciated Pious Faults LP, but the sound and attitude on Osbo earn that Cold Sweat comparison. I'll leave it to the real hardcore scholars as to the rest. The band previously released a demo back in the first wave of the Covid pandemic, which I am forgiving myself for missing, but might have to cop after hearing this EP. The vocalist is what sells it here, going full ugly for the duration, the kind of hardcore that would've lit up message boards back in the mutated reign of bands like Twin Stumps or Mayyors. Still works today, especially as a companion to that Bad Breeding LP, feral and ugly hardcore sagging under its own weight, probably causing the rooms they play in to sway like a ship in rough waters. I think "Say It to My Face" is the best track here, but it's hard to deny the nearly side-long "Time," a plodding, abrasive four-plus minutes that basically serves as a perfect showcase for the band's strengths: bass up front, uncomfortably ringing guitar, and the finest "AUGHHHH" I've heard in a minute. That track's worth the price of admission alone, and the artwork/design is aces, too. One hundo copies only, so go scoop yours from Sorry State (they still have the demo tape, too) posthaste.

Shop Regulars, s/t LP (Merrie Melodies)

Another fine recommendation from Matt K.'s Yellow Green Red here, the debut LP of Shop Regulars after a handful of limited, self-released cassettes that you or I will assuredly not own. That's just as well, because the LP's got plenty to unpack. The band sounds like prime Julian Casablancas fronting Horse Lords (or whatever rigidly asymmetric rock band you'd like) covering the Fall, all disjointed rhythms and knotty guitars paving a path for the most unbothered vocals. You'd be forgiven if you're conjuring visions of bands like Dirty Projectors or other lauded indie bands that felt like homework to listen to from that ill-fitting descriptor, but it gives twice what it takes and even tiptoes into spine-tingling on the 11+ minutes of "Emerson Run Down." The two guitars calling back-and-forth in the middle of that track gets me every time, even though you know where it's going, and it sounds like the rest of the band falls into place in real time and thankfully captures it all on tape. The whole record has this loose-but-tight feel, which in the wrong hands can feel very annoying, but here it's anchored by the performances of the patient vocalist and the drummer ready to fill any available void. Doesn't mean the drummer has to work overtime: the restraint on "7 Winds," which utilizes repetition like The Double, chases the spiraling cut-short guitar riff ad nauseam. There is a bed of real feeling here, not the robotic core that bands trafficking in uncomfortable time signatures, repetition and overlapping movements often do. It all makes Shop Regulars surprisingly durable, even helping me maintain a cool head in unbearable traffic earlier this week. Somehow a portion of the 200 copies are still readily available from the link above, but I can't imagine that'll be the case for long.

Sin Tax, Abnegation 7" (Miracle Cortex)

To the point: here's a 7" record packed with hardcore played at the pace of grindcore, draped in the sneering, smoldering frenzy of first-LP Kriegshög. Sin Tax have dropped my favorite 7" since Healer's Resurgence EP a few years ago, taking the torch of Straightjacket Nation and driving straight toward Valhalla. The vocals take a page out of DX's book, which I'm guessing most don't do because of health or safety concerns, and the band cuts all fat and likely into some blood vessels in service of making this as lean and feral as possible. Only "Dog Eat Dog" lets you come up for air, but good luck getting past all the flailing arms, let alone the razor-wire riff of the title track on the first side. Flattened me the first time and now probably the twentieth time I've listened to it; shouldn't be surprised given as it's from the label that released that under-the-radar Execution 7". Still available from the label for about $20 shipped to the U.S., and I'm available to tell you how dumb it is to spend that money elsewhere. "YOU ALREADY PAY."

[dustedmagazine]

Luke Temple and The Cascading Moms — Certain Limitations (Western Vinyl)

For his last few releases, Luke Temple has masqueraded under the pseudonym Art Feynman, which has evolved from a solo four-track project on 2017’s Blast Off Through the Wicker to a full-band concern on last year’s Be Good The Crazy Boys. Of that release I wrote in my Dusted review, “Art Feynman’s new set-up has clearly awakened a fresh dimension in the music, but one that sacrifices the woozy, understated charm of the project’s earlier sound for more straightforward, catchy, and danceable pleasures.” Drummer Kosta Galanopoulos rejoins Temple here alongside bassist Doug Stuart to form a new project, The Cascading Moms, who artfully combine hazy psychedelic-folk with hard-driving jazz-funk.

The clearest link back to earlier Art Feynman releases is track three, “I Can Dream,” which appeared in a different form on 2020’s Half Price at 3:30. The original version was beatless and atmospheric, ushering that album into the aether as its closing track. Here, backed by Stuart and Galanopoulos, the song is rendered dreamily but with a crisp, purposeful strut. This winning balance between full-band swing and headphone zone-out is also struck on the opening title track, easing the listener into this album’s woozy but vivid soundworld.

Skip forward to “It’s All About Timing” and “Second Half” and it’s a completely different story. Here, the rhythm section is firing on all cylinders. The band gets the lyrics out of the way in the first half, then spends the whole of the second half of each song digging into the groove. On “It’s All About Timing,” Stuart’s fingers are flying all over the fretboard, then just when you think the groove can’t get any more intense, he double-times the bassline. At the other end of the spectrum, the Cascading Moms tap into the wistful yet sinister vibes of Love’s Forever Changes on “Sandy’s Dead” and closing track “Softly.”

Though there’s plenty of evidence of the trio’s chemistry throughout this record, the best track is undoubtedly “Church Street,” which crams three songs’ worth of hooks into a single, four-minute mini-epic. Whether it’s the “Lady Madonna”-aping guitar riff or the anthemic “Get out, get out, I cast you out!” refrain of the middle eight, it’s a masterful and addictive song. It’s easy to see why Temple opted to coin a new band name when the results are this exciting.  

Tim Clarke

[virtuacore]

Knock (노크) 못참겠네 (Moschamgess-ne; I Can't Stand It) (1997) periodical old kpop power hour of power (POKPHOP) 1집

what better way to start off this series than with my favorite song from this era ever. the obscurant one-and-done group Knock's "못참겠네" (Moschamgess-ne; I Can't Stand It) is a profoundly strange, groovy banger that's like... you ever hear something and then never stop thinking about it for like, two-plus years? yeah, this is that. it's riding a crazy, pointillistic disco-house flow somewhere between Deavid Soul and Akufen, Cassius trading their vinyl for ROMplers, maximalist microhouse: as skeletal as it is stuffed with little details, spangles and accents, filter sweeps and microsamples. it's things like the molecular reduction of "That's the Way (I Like It)" in the intro, the track snapping into a nocturnal, jazzy hustle, the thumping kick and its accompanying squirrely bassline bending itself into a möbius strip, multiple hard-panned samples jumping out of the mix at the same time, or the digi-horns, space drums, pulses, beeps, whirls, pagers and phones all going off in parallel, and god knows what else (there's a lot more!). and the trio dovetail with and riff on all this racket perfectly, ooh-la-la harmonies colliding with angular co-ed rap geometry, sweetened sing-song into a perfect hook as sassy as it is yearning. and the breakdown after the first chorus is pure madness, a couple bars at a jagged clip and then "it's about that time I put you back on track!" in the center channel and "it's disco time, baby!" out of the left before devolving into gang chants and scream-raps. then it gets itself together and locks back on to that hellacious groove. totally devious.

it's a small thing, too, but I greatly appreciate this song knowing how good its hook is and beating the hell out of it as such. so many hits (and not-hits) of the time just sorta end, you know? here they drop the drums a second, bring them back and then hammer the hook into your brain over and over, layering the intro rap and a bunch more of those laser pulses on top. anyway... this song fuckin' rules so hard. what also fuckin' rules? this song's video!

the MV is so, so, sooooo good. a low-budget urban daydream of 90s street scenes (shout out to Freetel!), passing trains, underpass dance rituals and rain-slicked parking lots, all lit by colorful strobes and fogged-out flood lights, absolutely killer fashion (and at least two killer wigs), crazy fresh dance moves, just a bunch of grooving and messing about with friends on the street corner with a tinge of X-Files and Jet Set Radio, all linked together by an unimpeachable sense of cool. the image of the group just vibing on top of those cars while shrouded in fog and light? simply iconic. the video's mysterious nocturnal energy and heady, kinetic rhythm is the perfect match for the music, and the combination is a revelation.

the rest of Knock's sole album also rules, even if none of the other songs quite rise to the level of revelation that the title track does. every song is a keeper, whether the off-axis G-funk of "YAMMA" and "Bad Girl", the cartoonish lilt of "오리", or the infectious duo of "Miss Miss" and "너 친구맞니?!", which both utilize the structure of a four-on-the-floor hook juxtaposed with a funky syncopated rhythm for the verses. "연습게임" is mystical and subterranean, and even the requisite album-closing ballad "I feel in your eyes" is a jammer: slow-and-low, spare yet lush, unpretentious and memorable. the whole record's united by the same off-kilter soundworld that animates the title track—the same ROMpler full of samples bouncing every which way, instruments all over the place, bits and pieces of voice and sound accenting everything, almost like a fourth vocalist. it's full of hooks, microhooks and grooves, all anchored to a mad sense of rhythm and space. all these joints have been stuck in my head for ages, basically! it's always it's the weirdest, galaxy-brain tunes that go nowhere and are doomed to obscurity, ain't it.

download in FLAC or V0 (ripped from my CD... scanned, too!)

bonus fun fact #1: the female rapper with the buzz-cut is named Z-E (지이)—after Knock fizzled out, she linked up with a rapper by the name of Turtleman to form the trio Turtles (거북이), who scored hit after hit until Turtleman's tragic passing in 2008. Turtles were a universally beloved trio, and deservedly so—they also absolutely rule.

bonus fun fact #2 and #3: "못참겠네" (plus "YAMMA" and "Bad Girl") was arranged by one Jegal Min (제갈민), one of the unsung heroes (see also: Shin Young-sub (신영섭)) of the original 1992-1994 "rap dance" craze that was dominated by Seo Taiji, Hyun Jin-young, DEUX and others. like many a failed pop star, he then found far more success in production and management. one of his backup dancers, Kim Jung-nam, later found stardom as half of the legendary Turbo (터보).

bonus fun fact #4: future entries in this series will absolutely not go on this long. i just really love this song, yeah?

tumblr exclusive bonus fun fact #5: periodical old kpop power hour of power (POKPHOP) is a series i've started on my cohost page but to a certain extent this tumblr has been on a POKPHOP for seven whole years now

hat tip: Old Kpop추억의뮤비 and 58RNA3QD

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

so! i just finished listening to fellow travelers (music by gregory spears/libretto by greg pierce. that’s a lot of greg) for the first time. and it was good! can’t say that there’s much of any music that’ll be stuck in my head or anything but it was still good music with a cool soundworld.

i liked the story a lot—i feel timothy SO HARD and was rooting for him the whole time. i get hawkins too but i still don’t like what he did. classic operatic story of love and betrayal and politics and religion. mary johnson was great and i love how she supported timothy no matter what and called hawkins out big time after what he did to timothy and stood by her values every step of the way.

so yeah. good opera! would recommend. now i need to read the novel.

(here’s a recording on spotify and here’s the libretto)

[biblioklept]

A Review of Sonic Life, Thurston Moore's Rock n' Roll Fantasia

Thurston’s Rock n’ Roll Fantasy Thurston Moore’s memoir Sonic Life kicks off in 1963 with his older brother Gene bringing home a 45 of the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie,” blowing open five-year-old Moore’s mind to the sonic possibilities of raw guitar power. Moore describes the primal garage hit as the introduction to “a new current of electricity,” one that rewrites the “soundworld” of his earlier…

[burlveneer-music]

Haavard - s/t LP - Ulver’s original guitarist Håvard Jørgensen returns to the dark folk soundworld of their 1996 album Kveldssanger

If anybody else were to release an album that sounded as remarkably close as "Haavard" to ULVER's magical acoustic masterpiece "Kveldssanger", which stunned the Norwegians' followers with its radiant beauty in 1996 and that also contained a track entitled 'Kveldssang II' – that musician would be accused of blatant plagiarism. Yet guitarist and vocalist Håvard Jørgensen is the musical mastermind behind both, "Kveldssanger" and "Haavard", which means that his debut album as a solo-artist is in part a legitimate follow-up to ULVER's folkish excursion into acoustic sounds that he realised with the help of many excellent guest musicians – including vocals by Kristoffer "Garm" Rygg. Under the banner of HAAVARD, the Norwegian continues his unique artistic approach that unveils the epic and sublime melodies, which are deeply rooted in his native land's folklore. Through its acoustic and largely instrumental translation, Jørgensen lays bare the spectacular layers of cinematic beauty that hide underneath Norwegian black metal. Throughout the 90s, Jørgensen was an integral part of Oslo's fast rising black metal scene. After joining ECZEMA and continuing when the trio turned towards black metal with a new singer under the new name SATYRICON, Jørgensen also became a part of the black scene's progressive spearheads ULVER. Although feeling somewhat disenchanted with black metal for a while, Jørgensen continued to appear in various formations and for example contributed acoustic guitars to MYRKUR's "M" (2015) and live album "Mausoleum" (2016). In 2019, the guitarist founded new Oslo black metal act DOLD VORDE ENSD NAVN together with three current and former members of DØDHEIMSGARD. With his passion for the darker side of music re-kindled, Jørgensen decided to pick up the loose ends of the beautiful musical thread that "Kveldssanger" had left behind with his self-named solo-project HAAVARD. Audibly adding many years of experience, "Haavard" again invites us on an acoustic journey into the beating melodic heart of dark Nordic music.

[acousticmirror]

SoundCamp: Reveil 10

At daybreak tomorrow, I'll be once again joining the programme of Reveil 10: a 24+1 hour global stream following the Dawn Chorus around the planet.

This year marks a special occasion, since this is Reveil's 10th anniversary.

Reveil (2014—) is a collective production by streamers at listening points around the earth. Starting on the morning of Saturday 6 May in South London near the Greenwich Meridian, the broadcast will pick up feeds one by one, tracking the sunrise west from microphone to microphone, following the wave of intensified sound that loops the earth every 24 hours at first light. Streams come from a variety of locations, at a time of day when human sounds are relatively low, even in dense urban areas. This tends to open the sound field to a more diverse ecology than usual. The Reveil broadcast makes room by largely avoiding speech and music, gravitating to places where human and non human communities meet and soundworlds overlap. Each stream brings something different to the loop. Reveil 10 goes back to its starting point, giving attention to live sounds of places as first light reaches them.

The Reveil broadcast will be played out at Stave Hill Ecological Park in a portable auditorium by sound artist Michael Speers and architects Public Works. Swapping, streaming, assembling a collectively produced long radio form, REVEIL is a chance to gather tools and recipes for ecological radio, and listen together to acoustic commons in the making.

Reveil celebrates International Dawn Chorus Day, which has been celebrated annually on the first Sunday of May since the Urban Wildlife Trust organized the first such event in Moseley Bog, Birmingham, in 1984. Since then, it has become a global event, celebrated all over the planet.

The Reveil broadcast will be played out at Stave Hill Ecological Park in a portable auditorium by sound artist Michael Speers and architects Public Works.

Reveil 10 is produced in collaboration with the Locus Sonus soundmap, the Acoustic Commons network, the Cyberforest programme, BIOM Open Microphones, radio.earth, and others.

The Reveil 10 stream will be live mixed by Mixed by Fernando Godoy (Tsonami), Leah Barclay (Biosphere Soundscapes) and the Soundcamp cooperative, and it will be relayed by over 20 radio stations, including Wave Farm and Resonance FM/Extra.

Listen here.

(((o)))

[soundworlds]

P.s.

«I apologize for such a long delay with the comic. I sometimes have problems with my drawing schedule because of my own personal affairs and mood.» -ˊ▾ˋ-"

[johnoestmannmusic]

0x2A763 | Zen's Cyborg Workshop

-- This music, media, and associated project files are available for your study and re-use in your own projects under the Digital Commons Catalyst license. Please read the license document for further details: https://github.com/Soundworlds-JO/Soundworlds-Datapedia

[supersupersounds]

Architectonic by Sote

Sote - Architectonic

Mind-melting future electronics from Iranian producer Sote. FM synths uncoil, spraying sci-fi digital soundworlds into deep, deep space. It’s weird, but a trip well worth taking. I can’t believe this is nearly 10 years old. Still sounds cutting edge. -Kris

[childrenfuturemind]

The scariest operas: how the supernatural world has inspired opera composers

Ashutosh Khandekar explores how the supernatural in opera has served to express both our deepest fears and darkest desires.

From its very beginnings in the Italian Renaissance, opera was an attempt to recreate a form of Classical theatre that might help us, through storytelling and music, to understand the nature of our existence in a terrifying and limitless universe.

Mythical gods, sorcerers, ghosts, monsters, things that go bump in the night: the world of the supernatural is woven into the fabric of opera, heightened by music that colours and guides our emotional and psychic response.

The operatic voice itself is, in a sense, ‘super-natural’ – an extreme form of expression that projects the inner lives of characters onto a vast canvas, providing a perfect vehicle for inspiring awe and terror. In many Romance languages, the word for singing is derived from the Latin ‘cantare’, whose origins lie in casting of spells, or incantations. Some of the earliest examples of the supernatural in opera revolve around the subversive qualities of witchcraft and sorcery.

In Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, the witches who lure Aeneas away from Carthage represent what was regarded in 17th-century England as the pernicious, destabilising influence of Roman Catholicism. Handel’s opera Alcina warns of the malignant effects of the supernatural on Enlightenment ideals: luring men to her island, the eponymous sorceress turns them into beasts. Witches and sorcerers continued to fascinate composers into the 19th century. In Rossini’s Armida, the protagonist is an infidel temptress who uses magic to try to steer the knight Rinaldo away from his Christian mission in the Crusades.

Who are opera's greatest witches?

Perhaps the most famous of all operatic witches are those that appear in Verdi’s Macbeth. In a departure from Shakespeare’s Three Weird Sisters, Verdi has a large female chorus of witches divided into three parts, singing music that veers from the grotesque to the ribald. Verdi himself wanted the Witches to appear ‘trivial, yet extravagant and original,’ but many commentators have regarded them as a failure to capture the fantastical and fatalistic atmosphere of Shakespeare’s apparitions.

The late Verdi scholar Julian Budden wrote that the jaunty music in the first Witches’ Chorus ‘does not add up to anything very terrifying’ though it ‘at least captures the essentially childish malice of the witches in the play’. For modern stage directors, Verdi’s witches have provided fodder for ironic commentaries on what constitutes the notion of terror among an opera-loving public. In his 2007 production of Macbeth, Richard Jones memorably portrayed them as working-class single mothers living in a trailer park, bursting out of their caravans to scare the living daylights out of a mild-mannered Glyndebourne audience.

How did the supernatural world influence opera?

For Enlightenment thinkers in the 18th century, the supernatural world was full of irrational elements that held humanity back in the pursuit of a progressive, morally driven world. In Mozart’s The Magic Flute, opposing forces of darkness and light are expressed in the musical extremes of the writing for voice. The Queen of the Night’s stratospheric, otherworldly coloratura sets the heart racing with alarm; in contrast, Zorastro’s deep, calm, almost soporific arias draw us back into a world of order and reason. Music’s role in a world of discord is to restore a sense of harmony. Hence Tamino’s flute and Papageno’s bells, which can banish evil spirits, tame wild beasts and overcome terrifying ordeals.

So much of Mozart’s music embodies the ideals of the Enlightenment – a world of reason and order in which man is at peace with his gods. So whenever supernatural forces intrude into his operas, Mozart is prompted to explore extraordinary soundworlds that shake us to the core.

The ominous chords that reverberate from the orchestra at the start of Don Giovanni come back to haunt us, quite literally, as the plot unfolds. Mozart’s rare use of trombones in each of Don Giovanni’s terrifying encounters with the Commendatore’s statue are instances in which the composer conjures a supernatural world through cataclysmic shifts in harmony and strange, jangling orchestral textures and colours.

The influence of the supernatural on the development of orchestral and choral colour is at its most remarkable in Weber’s Der Freischütz, premiered two centuries ago this year and considered to be the first Romantic opera. At the end of Act II, we are plunged into one of the most celebrated scenes of supernatural horror in all opera. Lured into the Wolf’s Glen at night, our hunting hero Max enters into a Faustian pact with the evil Kaspar who is in league with devilish Samiel as they forge magic bullets that never miss their mark.

Weber sets the scene with tremulous strings underpinned by chromatic chords descending as if into the depths of hell. Forbidding incantations from the male chorus are punctuated with horrifying shrieks from the women. This dark, turbulent sound world is familiar to modern audiences by way of a thousand spooky scenes on TV and in horror films; but to audiences in 1821, this was a highly original and quite terrifying theatrical musical account of supernatural forces in action.

Both Mozart and Weber supplied musical templates for supernatural scenes in operas throughout the 19th century. In Verdi’s Don Carlos, sombre trombone-heavy brass chords, shifting uneasily from major to minor, evoke an atmosphere of fear in the haunted monastery where the hapless Carlos is dragged to his death by the ghost of Charles V.

The netherworld of Don Giovanni is palpable in Verdi’s orchestral writing in this terrifying scene. Tchaikovsky, meanwhile, spoke of both Don Giovanni and Der Freischütz as being among his favourite operas, models for the eerie, fatalistic scenes featuring the Old Countess in The Queen of Spades. In his review of the Russian premiere of Der Freischütz, Tchaikovsky recognised a ‘mighty creative force’ in Weber’s depiction of ‘The Fantastic’.

Meyerbeer, one of the most popular opera composers of the 19th century, was a close friend of Weber – the two had studied composition together in Darmstadt. His opera Robert le Diable was premiered in 1831, a decade after Der Freischütz. A massive hit with the public of the day, it took the theatrical staging of the supernatural to a new level.

Establishing the tradition of ‘Grand Opera’ in France, Meyerbeer’s opera includes a ballet in which a group of deceased nymphomaniac nuns rise from their tomb to perform an infernal dance. The scene caused a sensation at its Paris Opera premiere, not least because it showed off the theatre’s new gas lighting– a technological innovation that transformed the way the supernatural could be presented on the stage. Edgar Degas, for one, was transfixed by the haunting quality of light in the scene, painting it several times.

Der Freischütz, meanwhile, made a profound impact on Wagner, who saw the opera as a nine year-old in Dresden, conducted by Weber himself. You can hear Weber’s influence throughout Wagner’s works, and especially in his evocation of otherworldly terror when he deploys deep brass and woodwind resonances together with chilling vocal ‘sound effects’ such as the shrieking of the Valkyries in the Ring cycle or the haunting wailings of dead sailors on the ghost ship in The Flying Dutchman.

Terror doesn’t always, of course, come in noisy blasts. The supernatural world can be as seductive as it is frightening, and music’s devilish power to seduce is a frequent theme in opera. In Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, a catalogue of strange and sinister supernatural events, Antonia (a singer) is lured by the voice of her mother’s ghost to sing herself to death