Luis Vasquez’s music as The Soft Moon makes me periodically turn my head to see if some spectre has materialized behind me with the intention of dragging me down to the fiery pits of the underworld. The music he makes is dark and sometimes discordant, drawing influences from punk, post-punk, krautrock, and horror films. If someone had passed along his new album, Deeper (out March 31 via Captured Tracks), and plainly told me it was a score to a forthcoming horror film, I would not have thought twice. That is why Vasquez’s eerie Poltergeist homage (above), in which he reimagines himself as the child in the film, makes perfect sense in the context of his latest release.

For his contribution to our Car Tunes and Cartoons mix & illustration series, Vasquez compiled a mix of all the music that led him to create such tonally grave and anxiety-inducing synth music. As he explains below, the mix is comprised of some of his earliest favorite music, when he was just finding out that he had a passion for punk music and more. The deeper (heh) into his mix you find yourself, the more aggressive elements of his Soft Moon project begin to feel like logical extensions of his tastes. Check out the mix below, and find Vasquez’s complete Poltergeist illustration below that.

The Soft Moon on his mix:

“My mix consists of songs off the first ten albums i purchased in order from what i remember. I used to go house to house in my neighborhood asking if i could mow their lawns for $5 in order to save up money and buy more music until i was old enough to get a real job. I can still remember buying my very first album vividly. I wandered around the record shop for a long time not knowing what to buy. I came across Iron Maiden ‘Seventh Son of a Seventh Son’. I had no idea who they were or what they sounded like but i really liked the cover art so i bought it solely for that reason. I listened to it all day everyday in my room until i saved up enough money to by my next record. My second record was Slayer “Reign in Blood” and again I had no idea what the band sounded like but i remember thinking the name of the band was cool. Shortly after, I started discovering punk bands and felt more of a connection to it during that time. It was history from there. “

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Let us know if you are digging this especially dark and punk-heavy installment of Car Tunes and Cartoons! Make sure you check out all of our other great artist contributions, and check back next week for another mix and illustration from a cool artist we like!