Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Listen to the hacked zombie alert

Following up on that story about a zombie emergency alert prank, an audio file is now available for your listening pleasure.

Consider this fine fodder for parties and music sampling.

(thanks to Thomas Burkdall)

Christmas with the devil

Here's a musical celebration of Christmas, Infocult-style: Christmas with the Devil, by Spinal Tap.

(thanks for the reminder, Peter Naegele)

Deep sounds of hell

What does Hell sound like?  BLDGBLOG wonders.

[David Toops] calls this, citing the Aeneid and Paradise Lost both, the "auditory configuration of Hell": "The auditory configuration of Hell is an opposition of low homogeneous moan and confused Babel, of deep tones and threnodic shrieks, as if combining the outer extremes of human perception is the most authentic expression of damnation." There is acoustic "distress," Toop writes, somewhere "between roaring water and the tumult of the wandering helpless unburied," where dogs howl and angels whirling to their doom are deafened by "the bellowing of the Earth itself." 

There's a ton of music doing this already, but I wanted to cite this as a nice evocation.

Jazz vampire

Here's a sweet vampire song, really about jazz fandom.

(thanks to Jesse Walker; cross-posted to the Draculablog)

Dracula in violin

"Nosferatu": a beautiful composition by Antonio Ballestín, performed by Alma Olite.

It's a program piece inspired as much by Stoker as Coppola:

6 uninterrupted episodes:

I. "Carriage through Carpathian Mountains" II. "The Castle" III. "Love Theme: Crossing Oceans of Time" IV. "London 1897" V. "Love and Death" VI. "Back to the Grave"

Metal names, the map

How heavy metal band names are made, the ultimate infographic.

Here's a detail:

And here's the whole thing, squished up:

(thanks to the shadowy "Mr. K")

"If love tears you open"

Here's a bouncy, nostalgic, very dire little video+song, "Me and Mr. Wolf".

As a companion piece to Glen Duncan's novel The Last Werewolf, animators George Fort and Monica Smith (Superjail!, Venture Bros.) teamed up with cabaret band The Real Tuesday Weld — who you may know from the video game L.A. Noire — for "Me and Mr. Wolf," a gleefully violent music video that harkens back to the animation of the 1940s. Witness a werewolf and a little red femme fatale wander through a hellish (albeit bouncy) cartoon world.

(via Jesse Walker, a-walkin' in the night woods)

Zombie banks keep on shambling

CNN revived the zombie bank meme again.  This week they see Bank of America as shambling dead guy, and even channel Bauhaus (!) to drive home the point:

It appears that the United States may once again be facing the problem of having too many"zombie banks" (Bela Lugosi's dead. Undead undead undead.) that are too big to fail.

Other banks may reek, too:

"The banking sector will remain soft. Some of the major banks could be zombies for awhile."

Here's one nicely lyrical Gothic passage:

"It's old problems and old sins." said Rex Macey, chief investment officer at Wilmington Trust in Atlanta. "But banks -- and the economy -- can remain sluggish for years to come because of this."

Recession Gothic: as long as the economy stinks, we'll see it as horrible, it seems.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Listening to Gothic movie music

A fine article on horror movie music comes from Steven Thrower (Cyclobe).  It's modern horror, 1960 on, and hits many fine examples.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) opening is excellent.  Another highlight is Howard Shore's Videodrome (1983) soundtrack:

(via John Coulthart)

Scratching through to your brain, the pop song

From medical horror to bouncy pop song: “She’s Got the Itch” is based on this article about a poor woman whose itching got out of control.

Just the thing to listen to while you sip something green and sweet.

(thanks to earworm-wrangler Todd Bryant)