8 Tracks: Of Music To Watch The City Burn From The Mountaintop With Thomas Ragsdale

Music

As both a composer of music for TV and film, and one half of worriedaboutsatan alongside Gavin Miller, Yorkshire-based musician Thomas Ragsdale has amassed a vast catalogue. Recently he's started to focus more on his own self-contained projects – his latest release, the Under Dwellers EP, is a haunting subterranean elegy that exists in a fog of tape echo and weeping machines. There's always a strong cinematic undercurrent to Ragsdale's work whatever the context – indeed, his music has been featured in a number of high-profile documentaries, including Adam Curtis' acclaimed HyperNormalisation.

For his 8 Tracks feature, Ragsdale has chosen the rather wonderful theme of "Music to Watch the City Burn from the Mountaintop" – scroll down for inspired selections from the likes of Grouper, Boards of Canada and Roly Porter.

Under Dwellers is out now and you can purchase it via Bandcamp.

LISTEN

Boards Of Canada - Gyroscope

This is music to play when you’ve escaped the burning city, and retreated to the mountains for an epic view of the chaos below. The number station counting sounds make it even more ‘atom bomb’-like.

Boards Of Canada - Gyroscope

This is music to play when you’ve escaped the burning city, and retreated to the mountains for an epic view of the chaos below. The number station counting sounds make it even more ‘atom bomb’-like.
Roly Porter - Known Space

I love how this track makes you wait for just over two minutes before finally letting loose, and when it does it takes you on quite a journey. Pure noise mixed with blissful vocals, and when that final synth comes in at 4:40… it’s the end of everything.
György Ligeti - Lux Aeterna

I always imagine this piece sounding like you’re drowning or falling in slow motion, but everything is going to be fine. It’s ultra sinister, but only if you want it to be. I’m not a religious person, but there’s something incredibly moving about this kind of religious music, there’s no denying it.
Gavin Miller - Fotograf (Part 2)

This track gives me a feeling of, “oh no, I shouldn’t have pushed that button.” Again, everything is in slow motion, probably evacuating the power station as it crumbles to the ground.
Trent Reznor And Atticus Ross - What Have We Done To Each Other?

The title expresses everything about this track. It’s part of the ‘Gone Girl’ soundtrack and I think it’s quite reflective of how we feel about each other when someone disappears. Panic, anxiety and dread.
Joris Voorn - Fall (Nobody Home Dream Interpretation Mix)

I’m a massive sucker for synthy-arpeggio techno, and I found this track totally by chance. For me, it’s a prelude to the end credits of a world rotten by parasites with only a few survivors who managed to make it out.
Grouper - Black Out

Something for the final moments before you turn your back on everything and walk away. This track is from an album called ‘Way Their Crept’ and I’d take it with me to any mountaintop.
Dalhous - Another Witnessed By Resolution

Well done, you made it. Now go and start all over again, but this time do it right.