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I’ve just spent the week running my annual Halloween show; but now I’ve got the post-halloween blues and still have some of the music tracks running through my head.

So the best thing to do after a night of drinking, is to keep drinking; so here is the best of what I played, to keep the party going for a bit longer (yes, I know, it’s over!)

This one I played, sort of as a dedication for Aaron Vehling of the Vehlinggo blog and podcast, and who had me on as a guest for a top ten of horror disco tracks for Halloween. He is a big fan of the Drive soundtrack, and recently put together a five year anniversary special on his blog. Anyway, this version is a mash-up by Phil Retrospector of People are Strange by the Doors with Nightcall by Kavinsky.

This was the first year I had heard Halloween by the Dead Kennedys; and after listening to it a fair bit, I ended up waking up on my birthday with it running on my head. I like it because it’s a big ‘fuck you’ to people who would criticise you for superficial reasons, and restrict your freedom to express yourself, which is something you tend to forget about and neglect as you get older, and it becomes a source of personal frustration and anger, without it even being realised.

This next one was a recommendation from someone on the Halloween forum, as a great Halloween album. I think this guy Anders Manga is usually in a metal band and has this as a side-project — music for an imagined horror movie called ‘Hexed’.

I had a night where I did a kind of Kosmiche special, as I realised that I was already playing a lot of music like that, and had enough to let it run for a couple of hours. This is one of tracks that I liked a lot, that I’ve known of for a while, but only recently found on iTunes. Pascal Laguirand is from Canada, and this is from an album that came out in 1980.

This is another haunting one by Pye Corner Audio from Manchester in the UK. It has a little bit of a connection to earlier ‘Kosmiche’ music, with drones and repetitive rhythms, but it is something spooky out on it’s own, too.

This year, synthwave has really come to the fore; Stranger Things has brought it out to a much wider audience, with two of the guys from S U R V I V O R doing the show’s soundtrack. It has also inspired quite a few remixes and mash-ups. The following one is really interesting because it has the emotional feelings of the Twin Peaks theme by Angelo Badalamenti blended in with the swirling arpeggios of Stranger Things, and it works really well. It’s by Prom Queen.

I also found that I had a lot of music by female singers, not especially Halloween music, but music that was just dark and moody from the dark wave/synth-pop area. Some of the ones who got a lot of good feedback from listeners were a cover of Billy Idol’s Eyes without a Face by Marsheaux who are a synth-pop duo from Greece, and well as Good Times Don’t Carry Over by Chinawoman/Michelle Gurevich; and this track from Hungarian group, Nouvelle Phenomene.

This next one is a nice one that came courtesy of Eleanor Gray of the Cassettes and Chocolate Milk blog and podcast. It originally appeared on her Halloween mix from a few years ago that we repurposed *wink* for the show.

That’s it for now!! Okay, I’m beginning to feel better!! I noticed that it’s a new moon tonight, and that is so perfect, because Halloween is originally meant to signify the end of summer; but a new moon also means a new beginning. So the more you look at nature, the more you can learn, and the more all of this begins to make sense!

The Halloween Listening Party will return in October.Save

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