What do water zombies listen to? On those rare occasions when they arise from their aqueous graves to take revenge on simple land folk like us? The answer might surprise you (if the question hasn’t already). It’s not necessarily ominous, horror-film overtures full of icy keyboards and violins. I mean, it’s some of that for sure, but it’s also mosh-worthy metal acts. It’s tongue-in-check Canadian punks inciting murder. It’s also a surprising amount of hip hop (a lot of underground Midwestern battle rappers, actually). Who knew?
Apparently, D.D Dumbo knew.
Well, he didn’t exactly know either, but we found out together. Oliver Perry, the man behind the Australian 2016 Album of the Year, got me thinking about the musical preferences of water zombies. D.D Dumbo’s Utopia Defeated is as good as the accolade mentioned, but it’s also an equally odd creation — a glitchy rock record full of wild and strange arrangements — which Perry sings over sounding like Sting (or some Ziggy Stardust Sting variant). One especially stormy November evening, whilst huddled close to my warm computer tower, I navigated my MAGIX audio software mixer via the red glow of my Corsair mechanical keyboard. I threw the album’s second track “Satan” into the blender, and I quickly noted how the middle of the song had an odd 20-second space where the music drops out. It seemed a perfect little place to nerdily allude some other favorite piece of pop art.
The first thing I fished off the shelf was John Carpenter’s 1980 cult classic, The Fog. Holding the DVD in my hand, I remembered the cheesy ghost story at the beginning of the film where an old, barnacled sea codger (John Houseman) recounts a creepy sailing tale to children by a campfire. This dialogue would pair so perfectly with the tone and theme of D.D Dumbo’s “Satan” (zombies, murder, suicide and the supernatural) that it only seemed proper to push those types of wholesome themes into an entire album (you know, for the kids), spliced with ever more random excerpts from a not-very-scary ’80s film about leprous mariners coming back to life to take revenge on the ancestors of their murders.
So, I naturally needed to ask myself: What would leper pirates from the 19th century listen to if given the opportunity to enact righteous revenge from their watery graves? Probably some edge heavy hitters like Mannequin Pussy. Definitely a spiteful ‘90s-era hate artiste like Paris, and maybe even a little Leonard Cohen (for when they get all reflective). I gathered a mighty list of 27 tracks, stitched those together with some rusty, old voice captures and soaked it all in saltwater and seaweed. Why We Run is the final result.
I will caution listeners. Some of these songs are probably not for the Manilow lovers out there, what with their melting guitars, death howls and generous use of the F word (that’s fuck, mutherfucker, die fucker and other F iterations). Yet, it’s also artfully diverse, and it’s definitely the only time you’ll get the opportunity to hear metal evangelists like Pro-Pain paired right next to a country-tinged folk singer like Patty Griffin. If you don’t like a song, skip it. The next one is usually fairly different.
Just don’t miss out on the bonus track (one of the creepiest Main Title Themes in all of horror). The download link is below — only in MP3 format (can’t snag the FLAC like I used to) — properly tagged and included with high resolution artwork (in case you’d like to print out the album art).
Pro Tips for downloading: The link above will take you to a public Google drive. To make it easy, just download the zip file (it contains the entire album and artwork), or download each individual track (but you have to do one at a time).
Track Listing
1. Satan — D.D Dumbo
2. The World Ender — Lord Huron
3. Outer Space — Yelawolf
4. Voice of Rebellion — Pro-Pain
5. Cold as It Gets — Patty Griffin
6. Franks Kaktus — Dungen
7. The Talented Tenth — Blueprint
8. Mt. Crushmore — Lettuce
9. If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I will — PUP
10. Emotional High — Mannequin Pussy
11. We Got Defeat — Descendents
12. Bridges — Illogic & Blockhead
13. Take a Walk [Feat. Soom T] — Tom Fire
14. Black Grease — The Black Angels
15. Ketamine for Breakfast — Kate Tempest
16. Waiting Room — Fugazi
17. New Order [Feat. Luke Steel & Josh Klinghoffer] — Boom Bip
18. Long Snake Moan — PJ Harvey
19. Make Way for a Panther — Paris
20. Lily Liver — Oil Boom
21. Burundi [Feat. Emily Kokai] — Saul Williams
22. Fatal Flaw —Titus Andronicus
23. Untitled [Feat. Scar] — Killer Mike
24. Last Land — John Talabot
25. How Long? (Reprise) — Peoples Temple
26. Back of Your Neck — Howler
27. The Partisan — Leonard Cohen
Nemo 