Music

We obviously have no idea at precisely which moment in human history music became distinct from a series of discrete sounds, but it's a pretty safe bet that when our ancestors first banged two mammoth bones together – if, indeed, they were so moved – it wasn't because they fancied jigging about their cave to some broken beats. Almost certainly, it was because Mr and Mrs Neanderthal needed to warn off predators, and dustbin lids had not yet been invented. In short, the hairy pair wanted to make a sound that would spook, unsettle and generally frighten the bejaysus out of whoever might hear it.
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Sound, of course, has the primal capacity to scare us – often inexplicably; but music, its infinitely more sophisticated relation, can do exactly the same thing, and to equally devastating effect. Some sounds are so extraordinarily evocative they've become like shorthand for a certain mood or emotion, eg a trumpet or trombone can instantly suggest sleaziness (viz 'The Stripper') and stabbing strings often signal danger/extreme anxiety (eg the shower scene from 'Psycho'). In general terms, minor chords and dissonance will unsettle most ears, but – despite the work of those masters of uneasy listening, composers Elmer Bernstein and Bernard Herrmann – it's still surprisingly difficult to put your finger on exactly what it is that constitutes malevolent or spooky music.

One band that's pretty much nailed the scary tune thing is Liars. Never ones to shy away from using odd, awkward or even plain ugly sounds to strikingly atmospheric effect within their art-rock-cum-ambient-noise-punk framework, they surpassed themselves with their 2004 album, 'They Were Wrong, So We Drowned'. This was an ominous, thrillingly dark and visceral probing of the art and craft of sixteenth-century witches, that suggested a blend of Silver Apples, cLOUDDEAD, Chrome, Suicide and Cabaret Voltaire.

Liars frontman Angus Andrew agrees that there's far more to frightening music than specifics of instrument, pitch, tempo etc, but admits he isn't sure how it works (although the first record that did it for him as a child was Iron Maiden's 'The Number Of The Beast').'What's interesting to me about this whole question,' he says, 'is that music isn't intended to be scary. When you think way back, to what music is essentially supposed to be about, it's this celebratory thing, a collective, joyous experience designed to soothe the savage breast – and in fact, most music is like that. You have to look to specific genres to find music that doesn't work like that. To my mind, the opposite of something like elevator music would be black metal. The stuff that comes out of Norway – like Burzum – is really heavy and frightening. 'In the same way that people can be driven to ecstasy,' he adds, 'they can also be taken down a darker path. I'm really into that, but the point is that it's on the borderline of aggression. There are all these heavy and scary bands, but in the end, they're trying to make you feel aggro, which isn't what we're looking for.'

It's a point well worth making with regard to US hardcore hip hopper, Necro, who plays the Underworld on Thursday. His rhymes are brutally heavy (reaching their nadir in 'Who's Ya Daddy?' – staggeringly misogynistic even by gangsta standards), his sonic backdrops super-heavy and metal-toned to match. 'A lot of hip hop is going that way now,' Andrew acknowledges, 'and it's a lot darker than the screamy stuff coming out of Norway, but bands like Gravediggaz and Wu-Tang Clan always utilised these awesome, Satanic elements that made them really spooky.'

Those elements have an easily identifiable spook factor, though. What about something more subtly unsettling, like the work of London's illbient electro-pop duo, My Toys Like Me (who play Ghetto on Wednesday)? Or Liars' own 'They Took 14 For The Rest Of Our Lives', which features the sounds of a pencil scratching across paper, with heavy breathing and is hideously, brilliantly creepy? 'It really is creepy,' laughs Andrew. 'I think it's because it's intimate; you're wondering what's being written down and the inhaling and exhaling is just… sinister. There's nothing else that directs that song, so much is to do with the listener's imagination. Those particular sounds came to me because I was working in a basement, in the woods, extremely late at night and touching things, or just moving around. Obviously, you don't usually hear someone writing, but when you're in a studio and things are miked up, sounds become live.'

Andrew reckons 'a big turning point' in spooky music was engineered by an unlikely artist. 'You've got to go back to the King of Pop and "Thriller",' he declares. 'Obviously, I was about 12 at the time, but it was really frightening – the creaky door opening, the ghouls cackling… he took a big step there, by tackling something in the pop world that no one else had. I think Michael deserves the props for that one!'

Another band that gets the thumbs-up from Andrew for highly unsettling tuneage is Melvins, specifically their 'Stoner Witch' album. 'They're utilising humour,' he explains, 'which is what we also like to do. That kind of music – unnerving, unbelievably heavy, super slow and sludgy – allows you to go either way. You can be slightly comic, or you can be really creepy.'

How is slow connected to spooky? 'Because we look to music to feel literally upbeat, so if you subtract that there's a vacuum, which is unsettling. I find the other side of very slow – super-fast – just as unnerving. In much the same way as a slow song can put me in a weird, psycho mood, that really fast, pushing-at-the-brain thing can do it, too.'

Which begs the question: what about the spooking potential of silence? 'What you're taking advantage of there in the most intense way is the listener's imagination. That tends to be much more powerful than anything you can relay in the music. You do your best to set it up – with song titles, artwork, all those other things – but mystery is still the best tool for making spooky music.'

Liars play UCL Bloomsbury Theatre on Monday. My Toys Like Me play Ghetto on Wednesday. Necro plays the Underworld on Thursday.