Hauntingly beautiful music

[Aeridus]

What music evokes deep emotions in you? Music that is so hauntingly beautiful that you fall under a spell when you listen to it?

The current unearthly tune on my playlist is the Song Of Rebirth from the first Klonoa game for the PSX. So pretty...

Song Of Rebirth

[Frombork!]

<strike>Well, it feels dumb not posting a link, but</strike> the song Naushika Rekuiemu off the Nausicaa soundtrack always gets me.

Also, nearly any song by Iron and Wine, especially from his Our Endless Numbered Days album.

[Indigo Violent]

Simon and Garfunkel. Especially "Sounds of Silence" and "El Condor Pasa" (and if you haven't heard those, go hang your head in shame). It's weird because S&G is about the only remotely folkish music I like - my taste normally runs to spiky young men who scream a lot.

[Lulujayne]

My soul is bourne up to the lofty hieghts of inspiration, wonderment and angelic bliss by this opus...Ahhh, aural bliss.



(Sorry)

[Lowky]

My soul is bourne up to the lofty hieghts of inspiration, wonderment and angelic bliss by this opus...Ahhh, aural bliss.



(Sorry)

This was awesome. Musical numbers from The Muppet show were almost always awesome.

As for the original question I would have to say almost anything off Mesmerized by the Sirens from Black tape for a Blue Girl, especially Scream, My Shallow (unfortunately only links I am finding to it, are 30 secs long which barely has the song start). Have also been listening to alot of Ministry's latest Rio Grande Blood lately.

[RavenxDrake]

I've always like most of what I've heard from Sarah Maclachlan(McLachlan? I've seen it spelled both ways..) especially Silence and Possession.

I've also always been fond of Instrumental stuff, and I really like the background music from the .Hack series(all of them), Noir, and Rozen Maiden(as well as RM: Traumend).

And, saddly, I have no links to any of them...

[Kittyboymuffin]

The first thing that popped into my head: that choral theme that's used all over Devil May Cry 3 and is most prominent (I guess) right before the last battle with Vergil (Sibling Showdown in the soundtrack, I think).

[Swordsman3003]

The theme from castle in the sky. For sure.

[Squidflakes]

Pretty much anything played on a glass armonica.


ma numa na.. do doo de doo doo

[Honor]

The first one that popped into my head, at least in terms of music that's had that effect recently, is Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah... I'm sure this is partly because of it's inherant beauty, and partly because of the situations in which I was first exposed to it - very emotionally powerful moments in the finest drama series ever to be written for and broadcast on television.

Other music that, while it may or may not be hauntingly beautiful, tends to evoke such strong emotion as to make me cry when I try to sing it or listen to it... Jethro Tull's Heavy Horses. Dar Williams' Babysitter or When I was a Boy or Alleluia. Mozart's Requiem Mass. Ani diFranco's Fixing Her Hair. Harry Chapin's Cat's in the Cradle (I have no idea how Ugly Kid Joe managed to come so close to a carbon copy of the original song while producing something completely unmarred by any or the emotion of the original) There are others...

Songs that, while they may or may not bring tears, I do find to be hauntingly beautiful... Dan Fogleberg's Leader of the Band. Beethoven's 14th, or "Moolight" Piano Sonata, Fur Elise, and the Ode to Joy. Most of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. Seiji Ozawa's O Fortuna!, and, for that matter, most all of Carmina Burana. Ani diFranco's Tip Toe or Coming Up (although, as performances go, there are versions of Coming Up that I both adore and can barely stand)... The list goes on and on and on...

In response:

Song Of Rebirth

Very lovely... I quite like it. I think I'd classify it as more light and fluffly and happy that "haunting" or necesarily evocative of "deep emotion"... But quite nice.

nearly any song by Iron and Wine

Wow... Beautiful stuff... Thank you

Simon and Garfunkel. Especially "Sounds of Silence" and "El Condor Pasa" (and if you haven't heard those, go hang your head in shame). It's weird because S&G is about the only remotely folkish music I like - my taste normally runs to spiky young men who scream a lot.

Spikey young men who scream a lot tend to make me feel violent... Mostly toward young men who are screaming. I'd be very happy to grab one by the ankles and kill the other with him, by smashing their heads together.

In fact, people who scream for -any- reason tend to have very much the same effect on me. Children who scream in public should be forcibly shoved down the throats of their parents... Women who scream in movies should be killed immediately by whatever threat is causing them to scream - before they draw another breath, at the very least. Submissives who scream get a ball gag if I'm feeling very kind... Usually they just get shown the door.

But the Simon & Garfunkel... Now that's some beautiful stuff.

My soul is bourne up to the lofty hieghts of inspiration, wonderment and angelic bliss by this opus

I used to listen to that on the radio, with my mother, when I was little. I've also heard it on Benny Hill (who seems to prefer it to everything but "Yakkity Sax") and seen muppets perform to it at least three times... The first of which included a little... whatever... getting even with a larger... whatever... by means of some kind of cannon in his foot. Very strange stuff.

I've always like most of what I've heard from Sarah Maclachlan(McLachlan? I've seen it spelled both ways..) especially Silence and Possession.

It's Sarah McLachlan... Irish girl. Irish is Mc, Scots is Mac, if that helps. And yes, she is, indeed, the bees knees... If you particularly like SarahMac (I know... Mc. I've just always called her that), you might also like Enya and Loreena McKennit.

[Foolosophy]

Several songs by Jan Gabarek come to mind.
Also 'Stairway to Heaven', 'Comfortably Numb' and 'The Show Must Go On' come to mind...there are more but I'm not really in a reflecting about music kinda mood right now (which is rare, since I almost live music, but it does happen)

[Jrm]

i remember my jaw dropping the first time i heard Sigur Ros' "Svefn g englar"; when it comes around, i usually drop everything i'm doing just to listen to it.

Pretty much anything played on a glass armonica.

i almost got thrown out of a bloodbath & beyond for making glass harmonicas in the glassware section...

[Honor]

i almost got thrown out of a bloodbath & beyond...

...so, so stolen...

[RavenxDrake]

t's Sarah McLachlan... Irish girl. Irish is Mc, Scots is Mac, if that helps. And yes, she is, indeed, the bees knees... If you particularly like SarahMac (I know... Mc. I've just always called her that), you might also like Enya and Loreena McKennit.

Thanks... Enya I know of; Loreena McKennit I've heard of, vaugely, but I don't think I've heard anything I could name from her.

I'm about to say something, too, that is like to get me laughed at, but this is a good a thread as any to say it:

I like the Harpsichord. It's almost never heard from, save in a small number of classical pieces, but I really like the music it produces... (I suppose this might be a holdover from following classical appalachian string instruments like steel guitars and Dulcimers). In the right hands, it can be a really powerful instrument, and there's a certain haunting, ethereal quality to its music...

Ps: I tried to find some pieces with the harpsichord only to discover that every one of them seems to be dumped onto a piano nowadays to "make do".

Bah.

[Indigo Violent]

Spikey young men who scream a lot tend to make me feel violent... Mostly toward young men who are screaming. I'd be very happy to grab one by the ankles and kill the other with him, by smashing their heads together.

Violent death at the hands of angry lesbian - you know, I think most of them would probably think that was an awesome way to die.

[Honor]

I'm about to say something, too, that is like to get me laughed at, but this is a good a thread as any to say it:

I like the Harpsichord.

Oooh... I love harpsichord... Even more, I looove hammered dulcimer... It's like harpsichord with all kinds of delicious stacatto grace and beauty sprinkled all over it.

Prowl the celtic music sections... Look for Clannad (hell, look for Clannad two or three times, at least), Altan, the Cheiftans, Colcannon, Anun, Ashly MacIssak... Which reminds me of another couple hauntingly beautiful traditional celtic songs... Siúil, a Rúin, Dúlamán (Altan's version), and Coinleach Glas An Fhómhair... Ashley MacIssac's Sleepy Maggie...

*shivers*

Violent death at the hands of angry lesbian - you know, I think most of them would probably think that was an awesome way to die.

Sweet... Everyone goes home happy!

[Lowky]

The first one that popped into my head, at least in terms of music that's had that effect recently, is Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah... I'm sure this is partly because of it's inherant beauty, and partly because of the situations in which I was first exposed to it - very emotionally powerful moments in the finest drama series ever to be written for and broadcast on television.

Other music that, while it may or may not be hauntingly beautiful, tends to evoke such strong emotion as to make me cry when I try to sing it or listen to it... Jethro Tull's Heavy Horses. Dar Williams' Babysitter or When I was a Boy or Alleluia. Mozart's Requiem Mass. Ani diFranco's Fixing Her Hair. Harry Chapin's Cat's in the Cradle (I have no idea how Ugly Kid Joe managed to come so close to a carbon copy of the original song while producing something completely unmarred by any or the emotion of the original) There are others...

Mozart's requiem is probably my favorite piece by him.

To clarify my previous statement about ministry, I would never call it beautiful, but it does evoke powerful emotions in me.

Another one I just thought of that most of the people I have played it for either say they are scared of or they really love it, no ambivalence is Glenn Danzig's Black Aria. And I would say it is both Haunting and Beautiful. If your not familiar with it, it is basically the entire story of Lucifer's rebellion and ultimate defeat and fall as orchestral music. It is very much a departure musically from his previous and latter efforts.

[Aeridus]

I'm about to say something, too, that is like to get me laughed at, but this is a good a thread as any to say it:

I like the Harpsichord.

Oooh... I love harpsichord... Even more, I looove hammered dulcimer... It's like harpsichord with all kinds of delicious stacatto grace and beauty sprinkled all over it.

I own a hammered dulcimer myself, beautiful instrument indeed.

[Lictor]

A few pieces sprung to mind when I saw this thread:-
Enigma - Sadness. Sadly a lot of their later stuff was pretty dire compared with their first album.
Groove Coverage - Moonlight Shadow (Trance Version) A cover of Mike Oldfields song.
Chicane - Salt water. Need I say more.
Delerium - Silence. The Airscape remix is also very good if similar to the original.
Lasgo - Something.
Flip 'n' Fill - True Love Never Dies.
Gustav Mahler I think. you can probably guess which ones.
Gustav Holst - Mars-The Bringer Of War
Wagner - Ride Of The Valkyries
Linkin Park - In The End. Please don't hate me.
Proclaimers - 500 Miles.

[Lulujayne]

Gustav Holst - Mars-The Bringer Of War

For me, I prefer Jupiter, my heart feels like it wants to burst out of my chest whenever I hear it.

Also, Nina Simone does it for me every time, almost every song she ever recorded, in particular her version of "Don't Smoke in Bed."

And Crowded House has a special place in my heart - bless the Finn boys for what a dear friend of mine once described as, "perfectly beautiful Cancerian love-songs."

I got my grubby little hands on a great recording the other day, from Arhoolie Records. It's a collection of recordings made by an anthropologist from 1940-late 50's of spirituals sung by the inmates of a particularly nasty Angolan prison. The music is so heartbreaking and yet somehow uplifting both because of the context and because the selected songs are performed so beautifully.

Finally Tom Waits's semi-recent album Real Gone in its entirety - because that album makes me run the entire gamut of emotions in its 65 minute run-time.