I wasn’t aware of “hauntology” as a musical term (or any other sort of term) until I came across Belbury Poly. Philosopher Jacques Derrida coined the term to describe the relationship between the past and the present. The music that falls under the label is a mixture of old and new electronic sounds. It’s generally quiet music, with occasional vaguely sinister undertones.

Jim Jupp (Belbury Poly) described his own music in this way in a 2009 interview:

Part of a theme that’s ongoing in all the Belbury Poly records . . . is a tradition of British science fiction, where you’ve got on the one hand the setting of a very traditional background, with very ancient things, but you’ve got this weird, cosmic stuff happening [at the same time]. A lot of old British sci-fi books – John Wyndham, for instance – have these really mundane, quaint little village settings, but all of a sudden something really freaky and cosmic appears in the middle of it.

What is freakish is not necessarily overt – a nuclear war, or a sudden landing of carnivorous aliens – but a more subtle, unsettling sensation that the ordinary world is lying side-by-side with any number of other, stranger ones. It might only take turning a street corner at the right (or wrong) moment; opening a door that you’d never noticed before; switching on the television in time to catch a sinister glitch in the broadcast: any momentary gap in the border between here and elsewhere might thrust you into a new – or an old – reality.

I like all of the Belbury Poly albums, but if I had to choose one to recommend starting with, it would probably be From an Ancient Star.

A couple samples (Youtube links):

• Adventures in a Miniature Landscape
• Chapel Perilous

The Advisory Circle is another artist in the same genre and on the same record label. As the Crow Flies would also make for a good introduction to this type of music.

A couple samples (Youtube links):

• Everyday Hazards
• Wildspot (a Belbury Poly cover)

A heavy influence on hauntology music is library music of the type produced by BBC Radiophonic Workshop. One example of their work that I like a lot is Fourth Dimension by Paddy Kingsland.

A couple samples (Youtube links):

• Tamariu
• One-Eighty-One

I happened to discover Kingsland’s music through a independent game called Space Funeral. It’s quite an interesting game, and I recommend trying it if you think a very short, very unusual RPG sounds like fun. You can get it for free here.
 

When I played Machinarium, I was impressed by many aspects of the game. One of those aspects was the soundtrack. The song “Clockwise Operetta” especially stood out to me the first time I heard it.

You can listen to the game’s soundtrack here, and you can download some additional music from the game for free here. (My favorite song from the bonus EP is “By the Wall.”)

When I went looking for more music by Tomáš Dvořák, the Czech composer of the Machinarium soundtrack, I found his 2001 album Pocustone. I was happy to discover that it is just as good as the music in Machinarium (and in fact, it was the reason Amanita Design asked him to work on Machinarium).

Dvořák released another Floex album called Zorya ten years later in 2011. It is also excellent. You can download the song “Casanova” from it for free here.

From an interview with Gamikia:

My studio it is really laboratory with different components what I am trying to mix up together. I am originally clarinetist so this is my main acoustic instrument. However you can also find piano, metalophones, pianet, kalimba, melodica, acordeon, shakuhachi and several other instruments in my studio. And then there is computer, synths, effects – sound design and mix is maybe 70% of the time I spent over the song when I work on it.

Patrick Smith is a painter and a video game designer. You can find his games at Vectorpark.com and his paintings at Smithpix.net.

This is “Tower,” one of his paintings:

I came across Vectorpark.com some years ago when the site included just a few simple interactive Flash pieces. They had a unique charm to them, and resembled toys more than games. The works found there have become more elaborate over the years, retaining this charm and growing in creativity.

The surreal puzzle game Windosill is my favorite, and is one of the best video games I’ve come across in recent years. You can find it at Windosill.com. It’s also available through Steam¹. And if you have an iPad, you can get it on that platform.

Windosill is not free, but it is assuredly worth its low price. In an interview with .net magazine², Smith said that he decided to try charging for this game as an experiment to see whether he can make a living from his work.

Also from that interview:

I decided on the format — a series of window-like views, with the small vehicle moving between them — pretty early on. My background is as a painter, and things like perspective and deep space are interesting to me. I thought it would be fun to have things occupying the foreground and also things in the distance, and then to find a way for them to interact.

The individual rooms each had different inspirations. In some cases, the idea for a room began with a drawing or a painting that I thought might be interesting to approach as an animation. In other cases, a kernel of an idea would occur to me while doodling or showering or running or whatever. And a lot of my inspiration comes from other artists: just to name a few, I’m a big fan of the painter Peter Breughel, the cartoonists Jim Woodring and Chris Ware, and the sculptor Alexander Calder. Someone familiar with any of their work could probably spot their influence on Windosill.

Another of his games that’s worth a look is Feed the Head. You can play the game in its entirety for free at Feedthehead.net. This one can be a little confusing at first, but it’s worth the effort.

This is “Migration,” another of his paintings:

¹ Paul Eres calls Windosill “literally the best game on Steam.”
² This interview seems to have disappeared from the .net magazine site, but if you can find another interview that covers similar topics here.