What song do you associate with the below image? Find out what our team thinks and listen to the accompanying playlist.

For this edition of Call-N-Response, we've teamed up with 8Ball Community to co-create the playlist inspired by a Peep Show image pull.

8Ball has a new book, 8-Ball Almanac, up for pre-sale until October 18th and if you're in New York this weekend, you can go say hi / see them and the book at the Printed Matter's New York Art Book Fair Oct 13-16. Read more about 8-Ball and the Almanac below.

Bassel:
[Bruce Springsteen - Atlantic City] The song I picked that I think evokes a powerful sense of dread is Atlantic City by Bruce Springsteen. The song describes the abject reality of living on the peripheries of life, down and out, the ground forever shifting beneath your feet. It’s also a song of many secrets. In the final scene, the protagonist and narrator alludes to a task he’s been assigned to by a mysterious power in return for Some cash. Supposedly something dark and violent, but never explicitly stated. It’s something he has to do, even if he doesn’t want to. I adore this song despite the despair and dread it evokes.

Maya:
[Radiohead - No Surprises] I was absolutely nothing before i discovered Radiohead - infinite shouts out my best friends kima and gaby for telling me to take the full plunge into their discography back in undergrad. Somehow i am even more "nothing" now that i am a dedicated fan - there are few bands who can make me feel so bleak, and few intros to songs that can crush me like 'no surprises.' i still sing this song at karaoke, btw.

Tyler (8-Ball):
[Rexy- Running Out of Time] This song, to me, is the epitome of an 80s horror movie soundtrack where you’re being pursued by a stalker. Rex Nayman, the vocalist out of the British duo, puts on a melancholy voice over eerie synths in which she repeatedly taunts the listener of their impending doom that “You’re running out of time.” to the point that they should “talk themselves into a noose.” Great song to walk around NY streets at night for maximum sense of dread.

Sokhna (8-Ball):
[Flako - Mating Dance] Nothing more reminds me of dread than having a massive depressive episode where you walk around constantly having to remind yourself that everything is okay and that you’re doing fine. Sometimes having specific songs as the soundtrack through it all, makes it a little bit more bearable and this song to me  feels like that quiet place you go to after the 30th “everything is   okay.” And the “let it go” that is repeated throughout the song is that sweet release. of dread.

Chuck (8-Ball):
[Matt Sargent - Tide] The piece I picked is "Tide" by composer Matt Sargent. Matt Sargent makes a lot of long-form compositions that focus on resonance. For me exploring resonance of a bowed instrument is similar to exploring resonance of nails on a chalkboard. I don't mean that in a bad way. This is a beautiful piece of music to my ears. I just mean if you think about how a cello generates sound it's basically the same way you'd get notes on a chalkboard if you dragged some nails on it. and ya know something? I think I actually enjoy that sound. I enjoy the feeling of dread also. It is how I am choosing to spend my twenties and I like it that way.

Guin:
[Modest Mouse - Talking Shit About A Pretty Sunset] I simply can not overstate how important 'This is a long drive for someone with nothing to think about' was to me in my formative (sad-gurl) early teenage years. I mean, this song just radiates existential bleakness!!!

[Gary Jules & Michael Andrews - Mad World] If you want to feel utterly hopeless / depressed on a like, deeply primal level...look no further :)

Ryan (8-Ball):
[Tim Hecker - This Life] At first I couldn't decide whether I wanted to rebuke Super Hans and go with something upbeat and hopeful, but ultimately, I heeded his call for dread. The siren sound at the beginning of this song immediately signals that something is wrong. It stays dark, heavy, and foreboding throughout the nearly nine minute runtime. I think Hans would be satisfied.

Andrew:
[Nine Inch Nails - Mr. Self Destruct] I was 12, I think when this album came out and I found it both impossible to listen to, but also super intriguing. I think this track in particular - at the time, I was concerned that somebody was actually getting flogged to make the recording.

Torin:
[Alex G - Horse] I love Alex G but I feel like he has the tendency to slap these like "dissonant-for-the-sake-of being-dissonant" aggro noise tracks in the middle of his albums to troll us as listeners. I get big little brother energy from him and I would know…youngest of four here. This track, which also flows directly into the next track on the album ‘Brick’, definitely fits in that style. I chose ‘Horse’ because there’s a pretty clear sense of dread whereas Brick is more head banging energy. But mostly, honestly, it makes me reach for the next button - all love though, Al, all love.

Spurge:
[Anna Meredith - Nautilus][Justice - Stress] Both of these tracks effectively use repetition of orchestral instruments to create a sense of infinite rising that never really gets resolved. Justice’s screechy string instruments in ‘Stress’ feels like nails on a chalkboard while Anna Meredith’s brass instruments in 'Nautilus' huff and puff like a winded runner echoed by a low choir sound that makes the loop even more haunting.

Oscar (8-Ball):
[Ratking - So Sick Stories ] The soundscape of this track is dour and chaotic, but where the dread really comes in for me is the lyrics. King Krule can’t seem to help sounding despondent in whatever he does, and then Wiki at his most youthfully unhinged dives in nearly shouting about the waves of colonization that have crashed over Manhattan in its long life. Other moments on the album may bewilder, but this one simply piles on the weight of history and keeps piling, squeezing your chest until you feel nothing good can come of this.

Kira:
[Eiffel 65 - I’m Blue (Da Ba Dee)] This song always creeped me out as a kid. It seemed to play constantly, whether on the radio or at birthday parties, and even became a playground chant - truly dreadful. I’m getting upset just thinking about it!

ABC:
[John Maus -The Combine] My go-to doom jam. Such a scary bop.  The lyrics are just “I see the combine coming. It’s going to dust us all to nothing” 

Sarah:
[Fiona Apple - Every Single Night] Spooky because you know with Fiona she's always about to say something smart and relatable in a super creepy way. That music box opening + the album title + her haunting voice will get me good every time.

Sara (8-ball):
[Skinny Puppy–Testure (12” Mix)] Nivek Ogre’s scratchy movie villain voice with the super dense percussion and synth echoes kind of give an impending sense of doom like most industrial music does. Found out it was an anti-vivisection message about animal cruelty, which is even more fitting for this theme I guess. 12” mix because more time=more dread.

Hayley:
[Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Mercy Seat] Nick Cave is one of the most evocative musicians in the whole world, and "The Mercy Seat" might be his crown jewel. Dripping in atmosphere, the song details the inner dialogue of a man waiting on death row for his execution. The rattling repetitive drums take the place of a ticking clock, counting down the minutes until the protagonist is sent to the electric chair. He gracefully navigates the heavy topics of religion, judgement, and punishment in this dread-filled epic of a song.

8ball Community is publishing a book with NERO Editions, 8-Ball Almanac. The book is a comprehensive document of the first ten years of 8-Ball Community, told from the perspectives of more than 100 people that have been involved over the years through interviews and hundreds of photographs and scans of ephemera. Our hope for the book is not only to tell the story of 8-Ball, but to serve as a guide for those who wish to create their own community.

8-Ball Community is a collective that produces art, publishes media, and creates opportunities to share cultural programming. It exists to promote educational exchange, cultural growth and contribute to media autonomy, and it’s a base for people of all identities and backgrounds to come together, collaborate, create, and learn. 8-Ball is an artist collective; a community space; an independent media platform; a public library; a publishing house; a center for practical education. 8-Ball broadcasts radio and tv shows, made by volunteers and anyone else who needs the platform; it publishes zine and small books, as well as informative zines about various activism subjects; it collects zines and make them accessible to the public; it organizes events, including book fairs, exhibitions, screenings, dance parties, conferences, and more; it produces workshops on various subjects, and it creates connections between people to build a strong, independent community of creative minds.