CoC Ambience - Music / Soundtrack Suggestions?

[Jwfortune]

Does anyone have any good Spotify, youtube or Pandora station suggestions to play for CoC sessions?  It seems music would be very helpful in setting the mood for this type of RPG.

[rust]

4 hours ago, Jwfortune said:

Does anyone have any good Spotify, youtube or Pandora station suggestions to play for CoC sessions?  It seems music would be very helpful in setting the mood for this type of RPG.

It depends of course on your music taste and that of your players. That said, I usually prefer classical music. One of my favourites is Purcell's "Cold Song" in an instrumental version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_UiYLSJOyg

 

[TK Nyarlathotep]

For my group, I use the instrumental music of The Residents, the soundtrack work of Goblin, and the music from both The Binding of Isaac and The Binding of Isaac Rebirth.

[Mankcam]

Create your own playlist and add these soundtracks: 'The Omen', 'Rosemary's Baby', 'Psycho', 'Warlock', 'Halloween', and Nox Arcana's albums 'Blackthorn Asylum', 'Winter Knight' and' Necronomicon'; that should do the trick for classic horror, there is some creepy stuff there.

If you want to make it more pulpy era-specific, add in the 'Carnivale' and 'Boardwalk Empire' soundtracks, and some occasional random tracks from Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Jelly Roll Morton for that early Jazz era flavour (but don't add too much, otherwise it will ruin the atmosphere of the more horror themed soundtracks)

If you are after a contemporary urban horror atmosphere, then keep the original soundtracks outlined above as the foundation for the playlist, but instead of the 'Carnivale' and 'Boardwalk Empire' soundtracks, throw in the 'The Crow' and 'Underworld' soundtracks in their place. Then instead of random tracks from the Cotton Club Jazz Era musicians, perhaps scatter some tunes from bands like Goblin, The Residents, Bauhas, Nick Cave, Marilyn Manson, Tool, and Rob Zombie. Just enough to add a dark or weird urban flavour, but not enough to detract from the horror themed soundtracks already described.

You can find an abundance of horror-themed playlists on Spotify, and you can save yourself a bit of time just saving one of these.

If you type in 'LURKING FEAR' in the search bar then you'll see one of mine that I created for classic era horror rpg atmosphere.

Type it in, if you dare...

Edited September 10, 2016 by Mankcam

[rom90125]

For me, the definitive CoC ambient (aka, sans vocals/lyrics) music comes from Lustmord.  His track 'Black Star' epitomizes the sense of foreboding dread and hopelessness I want the Investigators to feel as they begin to pull back the cover on reality and get a glimpse of the mythos beyond!  I've begun to cultivate a Spotify playlist of CoC gameplay music for my sessions.  Here is a link if you want to check it out (including the aforementioned 'Black Star'):

 

Edited September 8, 2016 by rom90125
updated embedded Spotify link

[rom90125]

And here is my more broadly scoped Spotify playlist, Dark Ambient.  As I find tracks I like in this playlist, I add them to the CoC playlist I shared above.

 

[alter]

Quake I soundtrack. After all Sandy was involved in creating this game. Also very dark and ambient. Heretic 2 soundtrack is also good. 

[Eugene Whitmoore]

We have been using dark ambient music from Cryo Chamber:

https://m.youtube.com/results?q=cryo chamber&sm=1

Edited September 15, 2016 by Eugene Whitmoore

[Jwfortune]

There actually is a music collection in spotify called RPG - Call of Cthulhu / Horror.  There is also one called The Call of Cthulhu Music for the HP Lovecraft  Lit... and I can't read the rest.  I used both of those and some of the suggestions above and the music worked out pretty well.  Although I am now seriously considering subscribing for spotify to remove the ads and have more control over the music.  I can't decide.

 

 

 

 

[girtablilu]

I've used a lot of soundtracks from John Carpenter in my games.

I've looked at Sense Impacts on the site, but I don't know if it's any good.   Wasn't there another Call of Cthulhu soundtrack released by Chaosium years ago?  I swear I read something about it some time ago but now I cannot find anything about it, not even the name.  It may have been released with one of their other products as a bonus.

[Darius West]

If you are looking for a 1920s Jazz sort of feel, but don't want to go with Jazz classics, an alternative is Postmodern Jukebox.

Yeah, I just rickrolled you.

[girtablilu]

I finally found it.  http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/136457/horror-orient-express-music

It's by Alex Otterlei.  Does anyone know if this was this released with HotOE or released through Chaosium?  I found some tracks on Youtube.

[10baseT]

I picked up the Bundle of Holding Trail of Cthulhu +2 bundle and paid for the threshold upgrade, well in there, are 2 sweet soundtracks of cthulhu-themed music that are really impressive. One is an hour the the other is an hour and 14 min. Both set the tone and the mood. (Plus you get all the good Cthulhu content, which was my goal but i'm just surprised and impressed with the music)

Edited October 26, 2016 by 10baseT

[BigJackBrass]

Try Brian Eno's "Ambient 4: On Land." One of the most unsettling albums I've heard and it loops quite well. There's a sample of it on YouTube.

[milkomix]

I highly recommend Graham Plowman. Guy's a composer who actually made the music for some of Lovecraft's audiobooks. 

Here is the playlist; 

 

[Nikoli]

Edit: Just noticed that someone beat me to it above! 🙂 
 

Hi Guys,

For music, I’d recommend Graham Plowman. He’s a composer who specialises in Lovecraft and has an extensive catalogue of orchestral pieces. He has also scored independent films and even ebooks (via booktracks). 
 

Here’s a link, though you can find him if you Google: 

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Nikoli
Clarification

[Stormkhan Cogg of Pavis]

I'm sadly behind on this idea of ambient music.

When I run sessions, I minimise background noise so not to distract from my awe-inspiring narration/ruling/NPC-acting. I suppose it come from having to run games in a pub/club.

Although while writing for CoC, I tend to listen to 1920's/30's jazz tracks either on Spotify, YouTube or the few CDs I've obtained over the years.

[David Scott]

On 10/24/2016 at 10:56 AM, Darius West said:

If you are looking for a 1920s Jazz sort of feel, but don't want to go with Jazz classics, an alternative is Postmodern Jukebox.

I played Postmodern Jukebox's tracks when the players were visiting the Jazz club in Dead Man Stomp in the starter set. I also got a copy of Dead Man Stomp off youtube. Worked well, they thought the tracks sounded familiar until - 

and they twigged.