I’m going to be running a group of gamers (who have never played Call of Cthulhu) through Masks of Nyarlthotep starting in a week or two.
One thing I’m looking for is some generic stereotypical (and possibly marginally offensive) music for the various locations in the game. Free would be preferable, inexpensive would be tolerable.
I’m looking for mood music for the following locations, all of which will be visited in 1925/1926.
New York
London
Cairo
Kenya
Shanghai
Australia
Generic marketplace sounds would be pretty cool, too. As well as some shipgoing ‘travelling music’. I’m generally tone-deaf and music-blind, so I’m really helpless in this particular area.
Bill Brown did the music for the video game “Clive Barker’s Undying” which is pretty much a straight CoC story. You can download the whole soundtrack here. It’s very moody creepy music and I use it for that type of game session’s background.
Australia? It’s a big continent. Got anywhere specific in mind?
As for the rest of the locations, all I can suggest is maybe a trawl through Wikipedia Commons? Lots of free stuff there, which would probably include music and background effects…
I don’t play RPG’s except the video game kind, but maybe Django Reinhardt’s music would work for New York. They used some of his songs in the game Mafia and it worked well.
Cliché “generic Middle Eastern” music, suitable for Cairo - Albert Ketèlbey’s “In a Persian Market” and/or “In the Mystic Land of Egypt”. Approximately the right period, even!
Let’s try this again - are you looking for “Country” music that would have been popular in the timeframes that you’re talking, or are you more looking for “Native” music, such as didgeridoos and Aboriginal mouth-music, which is pretty much the same as it always has been.