Haunted Soundtracks

Book excerpt: The turn of the millennium has heralded an outgrowth of culture that demonstrates an awareness of the ephemeral nature of history and the complexity underpinning the relationship between location and the past. This has been especially apparent in the shifting relationship between landscape, memory and sound in film, television and other media. The result is growing interest in soundtracks, as part of audiovisual culture, as well as an interest in the spectral aspects of culture more generally. This collection of essays focuses on audiovisual forms that foreground landscape, sound and memory. The scope of inquiry emphasises the ghostly qualities of a certain body of soundtracks, extending beyond merely the idea of 'scary films' or 'haunted houses.' Rather, the notion of sonic haunting is tied to ideas of trauma, anxiety or nostalgia associated with spatial and temporal dislocation in contemporary society. Touchstones for the approach are the concepts of psychogeography and hauntology, pervasive and established critical strategies that are interrogated and refined in relation to the reification of the spectral within the soundtracks under consideration here.