VA - Haunting Ballads & Melancholic Masterpieces (A Butterboy Compilation) (4 x CDs)

HAUNTING AND MELANCHOLIC

VA - Haunting Ballads & Melancholic Masterpieces (A Butterboy Compilation) (4 x CDs)

When I call this box set Haunting Ballads & Melancholic Masterpieces, I’m not reaching for drama, I’m naming the feeling that threads through every track I’ve chosen. These songs linger. They move with us, shadow us, and refuse to fade once heard. The set exists because I wanted to capture that elusive quality, music that unsettles and comforts at the same time, that makes silence feel charged after the last note dies away.

Each track here was chosen not for popularity, but for resonance. Some are rare, tucked away on forgotten labels, others are more familiar but reframed in this context. Together they form a dialogue across decades and genres, proving that “haunting” is not confined to minor keys or ghostly atmospheres, it can be found in a fragile vocal, a drifting synth line, or a lyric that cuts deeper than expected.

The title Haunting Masterpieces elevates the idea beyond mood. These aren’t just songs that sound eerie, they are works that master the art of staying with us. They haunt because they move, through memory, through motion, through the spaces we carry inside. The compilation is more a journey, a moody, evocative selection spanning genres. Each CD flows into the next, building a landscape where melancholy and beauty coexist.

I wanted listeners to explore further, to hear how these tracks converse with one another. Notice how a spectral ambient piece can sit beside a stark ballad, how a pulsing rhythm can still ache with longing. This set is my attempt to map the terrain of haunting, not as a genre, but as an emotional state. If you let it, the music will follow you long after the box is closed.  

The set follows these themes:

CD1 - Ethereal Voices & Acoustic Shadows     Whispers and fragile tones drift through this opening disc. Voices dissolve into acoustic textures, creating presence and absence at once. These tracks haunt by intimacy, lingering in silence. Ethereal Voices & Acoustic Shadows begins the journey with music that feels near yet impossibly distant, setting the box set’s spectral tone.

CD2 - Gothic Echoes & Chamber Despair     Dark chords and solemn atmospheres define this disc. Gothic echoes reverberate like candlelight in stone halls, while chamber pieces embody confinement and sorrow. Each track was chosen for its shadowed beauty, revealing haunting as grandeur in decay. Gothic Echoes & Chamber Despair deepens the mood with elegance carved from loss.

CD3 - Melancholy in Motion     Explores haunting as movement. Ambient landscapes and pulsing rhythms drift forward yet remain tethered to sadness. Each track embodies journeys that ache, motion that never escapes memory. Melancholy in Motion reminds us haunting is not static, it follows, pursues, and moves with us through time and feeling.

CD4 - Soul Wounds & Lyrical Ghosts     Closing the set, these tracks reveal haunting as vulnerability. Lyrics echo like scars, voices carry wounds that never heal. Each song lingers because it speaks from pain and beauty intertwined. Soul Wounds & Lyrical Ghosts ends the journey with music that feels deeply human, leaving listeners changed by its resonance.

I hope this set is enjoyed and opens an avenue for further exploration. (B)

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Track lists

CD1 Ethereal Voices & Acoustic Shadows

01 Nick Drake - Riverman 4:18 1969

02 Elliott Smith - Between The Bars 2:22 1997

03 Bon Iver - Re- Stacks 6:29 2008

04 Marissa Nadler - Drive 5:36 2014

05 Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy, Jr. 3:19 2005

06 Iron and Wine - Naked as We Came 2:32 2004

07 Agnes Obel - Riverside 3:48 2010

08 Laura Marling - What He Wrote 4:07 2010

09 Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats 2:40 2006

10 Mazzy Star - Fade Into You 4:57 1993

11 Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah 6:53 1994

12 Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter 4:46 2025

13 Phoebe Bridgers - Funeral 3:52 2017

14 Aldous Harding - Imagining My Man 5:52 2017

15 Cat Power - Metal Heart 3:59 1998

16 Lisa Germano - Into Oblivion 4:10 2006

17 Low - Lullaby 9:50 1994

18 Mark Kozelek & Jimmy LaValle - You Missed My Heart 5:40 2013

19 Joanna Newsom - Sawdust & Diamonds 9:55 2006

20 Vashti Bunyan - Diamond Day 1:47 1970

CD2 Gothic Echoes & Chamber Despair

01 Antony and the Johnsons - Hope There's Someone 4:42 2005

02 Dead Can Dance - The Host of Seraphim 6:16 1988

03 This Mortal Coil - Song to the Siren 3:30 1983

04 Scott Walker - It's Raining Today 4:01 1969

05 Nico - These Days 3:33 1967

06 Leonard Cohen - A Singer Must Die 3:22 1974

07 Kate Bush - This Woman's Work 3:36 1989

08 Julee Cruise - Falling 4:12 1990

09 Lisa Gerrard - Sanvean (I Am Your Shadow) 3:51 1995

10 Tindersticks - Don't Look Down 4:19 1997

11 David Sylvian - Orpheus 4:51 1988

12 Cocteau Twins - Otterley 3:59 1984

13 Bat for Lashes - If I Knew 4:16 2016

14 Rufus Wainwright; Anohni - Going to A Town 4:16 2007

15 Perfume Genius - Choir 2:28 2017

16 Susanne Sundf r - Undercover 4:19 2017

17 Anna Von Hausswolff - The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra 6:08 2017

18 Soap&Skin - Spiracle 2:48 2009

19 Julia Holter - Sea Calls Me Home 3:07 2015

20 Chelsea Wolfe - The Way We Used To 2:47 2012

CD3 Melancholy in Motion

01 Sigur R s - Untitled #3 (Samskeyt)i 6:33 2002

02 Explosions in The Sky - First Breath After Coma 9:40 2003

03 Max Richter - On The Nature of Daylight 6:11 2004

04 A Winged Victory for The Sullen - Steep Hills of Vicodin Tears 4:25 2011

05 Stars of the Lid - Requiem for Dying Mothers Part 2 7:37 2001

06 J hann J hannsson - Englaborn 5:09 2002

07 Rachel s - Water From the Same Source 6:18 2003

08 Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Dead Flag Blues (Edit) 3:01 1997

09 Balmorhea - Remembrance 5:49 2009

10 Eluvium - Ostinatio 6:10 2007

11 Tim Hecker - Seasick 4:31 2021

12 William Basinski - Tear Vial 4:47 2020

13 Low Roar - I'll Keep Coming 5:52 2014

14 Hammock - Turn Away and Return 5:13 2016

15 Helios - Emancipation 2:34 2006

16 Mogwai - Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home 5:56 1997

17 MONO - Ashes in the Snow 11:45 2009

18 Biosphere - Blue Monday 5:27 2011

19 Ryuichi Sakamoto - solari 3:51 2017

20 Akira Kosemura - Someday 4:33 2016

CD4 Soul Wounds & Lyrical Ghosts

01 Johnny Cash - Hurt 3:38 2002

02 Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit 3:11 1939

03 Pearl Jam - Black 5:43 1991

04 Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely 5:56 2000

05 National - About Today 4:10 2004

06 Fleetwood Mac - Storms 5:30 1979

07 Tracy Chapman - Behind The Wall 1:49 1988

08 Lou Reed - Perfect Day 3:39 1972

09 Simon & Garfunkel - The Sounds of Silence 3:09 1965

10 Bob Dylan - Not Dark Yet 6:27 1997

11 PJ Harvey - The Dancer 4:05 1995

12 Mark Lanegan - One Hundred Days 4:36 2004

13 Tom Waits - Time 3:56 1985

14 Beth Gibbons; Rustin Man - Funny Time of Year 6:48 2002

15 Etta James - I'd Rather Go Blind 2:34 2021

16 Travis - The Humpty Dumpty Love Song 5:03 2001

17 Damien Jurado - Ohio 3:41 1999

18 Sharon Van Etten - Love More 5:14 2010

19 Keaton Henson - You 4:42 2013

20 Leonard Cohen - A Thousand Kisses Deep 6:29 2001

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Music weaves itself into the fabric of our emotions, dances through the corridors of memory, and whispers to the soul of who we are. Sharing these stories deepens the connection, turning the experience into something timeless and profound.

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