What I’m listening to this week

Happy Halloween! ‘tis the season for costumes, bonfires, carving pumpkins, telling scary stories, and settling in for even scarier movie marathons. I tend to keep the Samhain vibe going all week year long. ...

Still, the weeks leading up to this most haunted day are always filled with rich headphone ambience for communing with my inner goth. These 11 singles, EPs, albums, and excursions into the spirit realm are keeping the atmosphere thick around my home as of late.

Stranger Things season 2 is in full-effect right now. Anyone who’s from around these parts has already spied dressed up bits of Atlanta peeking out from almost every scene (no spoilers, y’all). Once again, Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein are cleaning up in the press department after expanding upon their already epic soundtrack for the show. But let’s not forget that S U R V I V E rolls out the RR7387 remix EP on Fri., Nov. 3. Lena Willikens’ remix of “Cutthroat” is a head-nodding slow ride beyond the streets of Hawkins, Indiana circa 1984. But Justin Broadrick of Godflesh’s rework of “Other” pushes S U R V I V E into wholly new dimensions of industrial ambience. Drop the needle and let it ride.

Meghan Dowlen is blowing up now as the bass player with Atlanta drag-punk outfit Material Girls. But really, her entire Jade Poppyfield catalog is kind of taylor made for crafting the perfect autumnal soundtrack. Twilight Orchid is one of her finest and dreamiest offerings yet.

Of course, I’m stoked about seeing Nik Turner’s Hawkwind at the Earl on All Hallows Eve. I’ve had the group’s latest album, Life In Space, on regular rotation for few weeks now. Did you know that guitarist Nicky Garratt was a member of the U.K. Subs and Brainticket? That’s quite a spread of classic U.K. punk muscle and mind-melting psychedelia on display in those rhythms and riffs. Garratt is also in the opening band, Hedersleben.

Definitely get their early to witness the almighty Sash the Bash wielding her Gretsch double-necked guitar alongside drummer Lindsey Tulkoff.

I was torn between posting the Difference Machine’s song “Scorpions” or “It’s Alive” as part of this list. Both are good and spooky hip-hop cuts from the outer limits. Check them out when they play Adult Swim’s “Bloodfeast” Dec. 7. And at Aisle 5 on Dec 28.

Following a three-year hiatus, the Italian horror-prog film score masters Goblin return on the Sound Of Fear tour. The group is famous for crafting creepy scores to horrifying films such as Suspiria, Deep Red, and Dawn Of The Dead. It’s also known for a whole lot of infighting. Rogue Goblin factions spring up from time to time, but this lineup, featuring Massimo Morante (guitar), Maurizio Guarini (keyboards) Fabio Pignatelli (bass), Agostino Marangolo (drums) and Aidan Zammit (keyboards), is as official as it gets in 2017. This time around, the group dives into newer material from 2015’s Four Of A Kind, along with classic film scores, and material that Goblin has never played live until now.

Also of note, when Goblin played the Loft in Sept. 2013, it was the first time the group had ever played on American soil. Check out the feature story CL ran that week.

Our man in the photo pit Brandon English shot a whole bunch of pictures at the show.

$25-$30. 8:30 p.m. Wed., Nov. 8. With Morricone Youth. The Loft, 1374 West Peachtree St. 404-885-1365. www.centerstage-atlanta.com/shows/the-loft.

Uniform’s debut album No Trending is making the rounds online now. The LP is out Nov. 2. The group plays an album release party that night at 529. With Body Kit, Floor Model, and Anticipation. 9 p.m. Free (donations at the door).

 

Front Line Assembly’s Caustic Grip is one those benchmark ’90s industrial underdog albums that jump off the shelf around this time of year sometimes just so I can listen to “Isolate.” They’re playing the Loft on Sun., Nov. 5, with Cubanate.

The Zuckerman Museum of Art at Kennesaw State University opens wide the doorway to another dimension with “Medium,” a show that assembles several artists including Stephanie Dowda, Lacey Prpic Hedtke, Carrie Mae Weems, and more to create original works based on authentic 1920s s̩ance transcripts, Cold War-era bone records, and other haunting sounds and visions, culled largely from the University of West Georgia’s parapsychological archives. The show explores the means by which the living communicate with those who have passed on to the other side, and the role that mediums play in that discourse.

A vinyl LP, titled Medium: Paranormal Field Recordings and Composition, 1907-2017, serves as a sonic artifact and catalog for the show. Curated by artist and musician Ben Coleman, the LP features previously unreleased recordings of poltergeist activity provided by the Society for Psychical Research in the U.K., along with compositions by Eluvium, Laura Cannell, CM von Hausswolff, and more. It’s a one-of-a-kind fusion of visual and sonic art for Atlanta that’s not be missed in this life or the next. It’s only available on vinyl, and it is not for the faint of heart.

One of the artists who contributed to the album is Michael Esposito, the Alan Lomax of electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) recordings. Esposito’s 2016 collaboration with Dave Phillips, titled The Ghosts Of Freaks, is precisely the kind of thing you don’t want to listen to when you’re sitting at home alone at night. Press play, if you dare.

 

It’s a damn shame that Death Stuff had to go and break up. Still, they left the world with a killer cassette tape. It feels especially urgent this time of year.

 

The Legendary Pink Dots are always good for an introspective survey of one’s own psychological peculiarities, especially while communing with the changing autumn landscape. “Hallowe’en Special 2017” is nearly 15 minutes of Edward Ka-Spel and Co. channeling the spirits of the season. I tend to pull out The Tear Garden records around this time every year as well. The Particularly spooky and alluring air of “My Thorny Thorny Crown” from 1987’s Tired Eyes Slowly Burning is a seasonal favorite.

 

And last, but not least, you can read all about Ashley Fure’s “The Force of Things” in the current issue of the New Yorker. It is a wonderfully horrifying piece of modern composition and performance art that personifies the natural world that humans seems hellbent on bleeding dry. This piece is an absolute monster of droning instability a haunting, spacious, and uneasy kin to Krzysztof Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima.”