ZEENA PARK1NS - N1GHTMARE ALLEY (1993)

The dreams that are the flip side of dreams. Dark days, darker nights. The screen door is unlocked, knocking in the wind. The way the mind takes you to what you dread most. Nightmares are not the opposite of dreams, but corollary. They are places of vulnerability and fixation, embedded into the act of dreaming itself, including our drives, desires and cultural production. The line between nightmares and dreams is not only razor-thin, it's permeable. We dream of money, carnality. We dream of what we fear. There is someone standing in the shadows of the darkened room.

The incredible Ms. Parkins--and her marvelous electric harp--begin our walk through the nightmare alleys.

KENY0N H0PK1NS - N1GHTMARE!! (1962)

The sleeve states: "And you awaken with perspiration, sick with dread. But you were thankful to be awake. It was so real. The memory of it has already started to recede down the hallway of your mind. But it was so real! You can recall, just barely, the dim circle of light in which you stood white it waited patiently in the darkness beyond. And the light grew fainter...."

"Here are 13 private hells in which time has already run out. Here are nightmares from which there is no wakening."

N4SH THE SLASH - DREAMS AND N1GHTMARES (1979)

The late Mr. Slash (1948-2014) divided his record into Left Side and Right Side, an apropos reminder of the dream/nightmare dialectic and the brain's conjoined hemispheres. The dream state: ingrained and engrained...wax cylinders and neural plasticity.

This stark offering of synth-drenched sonic architecture was composed as a soundtrack to Luis Buñuel's silent film Un Chien Andalou (1928). You may be a peculiar sort, one able to groove to this moody, propulsive score, but you may find yourself feeling claustrophobic and slightly techno-fascistic, if perhaps in an Ontario kind of way. Synthpop for sweating. New wave for discomfort. Space goth blues for tossing and turning...

DR. EUGENE WE1NBERG - A CHILD'S CRY: A CLUE TO DIAGN0SIS (1971)

In our deepest nightmares children cry. They are out of reach, out of sight...sad, lost, gone, disappeared, in pain, dead. The only drive stronger than the death drive is of course the parental drive. To protect, to understand, to relieve our children of discomfort, confusion, fear, and pain.

Dreams of crying here...

(This album was produced by Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company, so we'll add it to our Dreamwork of Capital medical category. Also, as a potential antidote, we have Soothing Sounds for Babies here.)

CURRENT 93 / S1CKNESS OF SNAKES - N1GHTMARE CULTURE (1985)

A split-album of gothic sound-collage experimentalism featuring one longish Current track (with S. Stapleton and D. Tibet) displaying their most apocalyptic of nightmares, and three short dark ambient tracks from the one-off pre-Coil project by J. Balance and P. Christopherson. These are the sounds of the dreaming brain consumed by fears of impending doom.

Dream it...

ALAN JEFFERS0N - GALACT1C N1GHTMARE (2015)

Self-recorded in the UK from 1979-1985--and previously released only on cassette--this space-based musical drama may be less of a nightmare than its title suggests. But viewed in a lineage with HG Well's War of the Worlds, this work offers up a compelling dystopian adventure rife with dark disco and campy nightmarescapes.

Dream it...

EL1ZABETH CLARE PR0PHET - S0UNDS OF AMERICAN DOOMSDAY CULTS (1984)

Chants, sermons and invocations from Ms. Prophet on behalf of the Church Universal & Triumphant, Inc. in Montana. I'm not too sure of the subtleties of their core principles. They do pay credence to a group of "ascended masters" including Christ, Buddha, El Moyra, Zarathustra, Hercules and the arc-angel Michael. They also certainly hate popular music and mass culture, which they pray to destroy. While this is certainly terrifying stuff, perhaps the most nightmarish quality is their unique (can we say innovative?) chanting style that could likely emerge from (or into) your most discomforting dream.

Dream it here...

DANTE / JOHN C1ARDI - THE INFERNO (CANTOS 1-8) (1959)

Folkways released this Immortal Drama of a Journey Through Hell, with the poet Ciardi guiding the way with monotone severity. "Abandon all hope all ye who enter here," Dante tells us. Indeed, the relationships between nightmares, death and even hell is on full display here. These connections--ingrained through centuries of acculturation--continue to underpin our unconscious thoughts and dreams. And they continue to bubble up in our waking hours, guiding both our social interactions and civilizing impulses (see Freud, here).

Dreaming Divine Dark Comedy...

D4NNY ELFMAN - THE N1GHTMARE BEF0RE CHR1STMAS (1993)

Here, at OWOD, our nightmares are filled with failure. We find ourselves at concerts where we learn we are to perform live without having rehearsed. We find ourselves in classrooms, unprepared for exams, and at the podiums of lecture halls without any notes. In this spirit, we present this soundtrack to the Tim Burton film, meant to be posted for Halloween (along with the whole nightmare sequence) and haunting our thoughts and dreams since.

Here it is...

JUST1N WALTER - LULLAB1ES AND N1GHTMARES (2013)

We'll end the day's posts with this wonderful trumpet-aided salve. Electronic atmospherics, both soothing and dreamy, and menacing and grating.

Sweet Nightmares, Baby...

J0E FRANK - DREAMS IN PROGRESS (AN OWOD MIX)

Time slows to viscous trickle around here. Days, nights come and go imperceptibly. The dog lays unmoving on the floor. The employees stare blankly at their screens. We fight to keep going.

Joe Frank (1938-2018) made over 250 hours of distinct, mindblowing radio works for NPR and KCRW Santa Monica over the course of 40 years. His monologues, dramas, and improvisations speak to the dreaminess of late-night America, the media of radiowaves and car travel, and the immersive, wayward possibilities of narrative voice itself. Here, we select and sample eight works (four hours) of short and long length spanning much of his career: specifically his works on (and within) the subject of dreams.

RIP, JF...

JÓH4NN JÓHANNSS0N - C0PENHAGEN DREAMS (2012)

J. Jóhannsson: 1969 - 2018.

A soundtrack to the documentary by M. Kestner. Vocals by Ms. H. Guðnadóttir.

RIP, JJ....