siLLy puPPy PIKE 177 - 30 DAYS TIL HALLOWEEN: SWOLLEN GLASSES is the 76th album released by BUCKETHEAD in 2015 and the 2nd in the countdown to HALLOWEEN installment. Another all instrumental album performed exclusively by BUCKETHEAD. This one clocks in just fifty seconds over the half hour mark and has ten tracks all titled SWOLLEN GLASSES. They proceed from “Part 1” to “Part 10” with the longest being only 4:40.

This is yet another ambient album that provides a spooky HALLOWEEN soundtrack. It begins with ambient synthesized sounds that make me feel like i’m in a vacuum in space and as particles hit me they make little echoey noises with ghostly hauntings in the distance. There are abrupt noises more in the bass range that explode into the sonicscape sometimes dissipating quickly and sometimes sustaining for a while. The tracks all blend together seamlessly so it is utterly impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends but this is more of a sound factory than music per se although there are certain aspects of music that deliver some sort of scaled chromatic tonal system albeit in cahoots with the overall spookiness of the randomness. There are even little snippets that sound like lullabies that play for a while.

Basically this is another successful horrific soundtrack for HALLOWEEN. It is cold, detached and filled with ambient spookiness and truly extra dimensional in feel. The combination of frosty ambient aesthetics with echoey strings that are electronically manipulated are the stuff of nightmares indeed. Only 30 DAYS TIL HALLOWEEN to go but i’ve already had the bleep scared outa me with these PIKES.