love living in an apartment. Maybe at some point I’ll want my own property, but I kind of doubt it; no lawn to mow, close to downtown rather than out in the suburbs, a nice view… sure, you have to worry about the hot water running out, and sometimes lugging groceries up all those stairs is a bitch, but to my mind the tradeoffs are worth it.

Still there are some times when that jerk down the hall, or that noisy couple below you drives you up the wall. And in those cases, you should keep in mind that, at least here in Ontario, usually cops don’t do much about a noise complaint other than ask you to be quiet, and you can always feign innocence when the knock on your door. The first time.

Basically any loud music could suffice for your efforts, of course, but don’t you want to make your victims really remember it so they hopefully never bother you again? I haven’t bothered to include the really extreme noise artists out there (no Merzbow, no Aube), for the simple reason that those should probably be reserved for times when you’re attempting to commit sonic homicide. These ten track are more suited for efforts in between.


10. Big Black – ‘Steelworker’ You want to start off slowly, of course. This is very early Big Black, and so not all that loud, just Roland thumping and hissing away and Albini playing a simply, trebly part on his guitar. But the repetition will begin to grate, and ideally you should have this turned up loud enough for your neighbours to hear Albini sneering “The only good laws aren’t enforced” and wonder what’s going on. By the time he starts repeating “I’m a steelworker!/I kill what I eat!/I’m a murderer!/I kill what I eat!”, they should be getting extremely uneasy.


9. Spacemen 3 – ‘Suicide (Live)’ But of course you don’t want the cops here yet. So switch to something without vocals, and have Jason Pierce, Sonic Boom and co. piledrive that riff straight into your head for sixteen minutes of so. Each time your neighbour thinks they’re going to stop, they just go higher.


8. Wire – ‘I Don’t Understand’ The muttery bits at the beginning of this latter day Wire track might make them think they’ve finally got a chance to settle down, until the music pauses and Newman and Lewis start howling “You’ve had your chance!” and the whole thing kicks in again. It’s impossible to hear ‘I Don’t Understand’ without hearing the spite it’s full of, which your poor neighbour at this point will hopefully figure out is directed at them.


7. Primal Scream – ‘Accelerator’ Push it just a bit further with this gem from XTRMNTR - with an assist from Kevin Shields, it already starts out very, very loud, but right at the end Bobby yells “Come on!” again and one of the guitarists starts shredding. All the while, the bass drum hasn’t stopped. An old favorite of mine for noise purposes, if you’ve got the sound up high enough this would wake the dead.


6. Kate Bush – ‘Sat In Your Lap’ But now you want to give them a bit of a rest – not enough to sleep, just enough to make them think you’re backing off. ‘Sat In Your Lap’ starts off, not quiet, but certainly business as usually for Kate Bush; odd structure, abrasive, etc. Not one of her ballads, certainly. And then the refrain comes in, and she makes the most unpleasant sound I’ve ever heard her make – to say she shrieks the lines is an understatement. That, coupled with the chanted ending, should almost yank them back from whatever rest they were seeking.


5. The Stooges – ‘L.A. Blues’ It starts with the sound of Iggy screaming; due notice to your neighbour that this is the beginning of the end. Launching directly from the title track of Fun House (the best Stooges album), ‘L.A. Blues’ explodes instantly into some of the most atonal playing heard from a relatively conventional rock band. They even brought in Steve Mackay on sax for the free-jazz sound. The drums never quite find a steady beat, the guitars don’t sound like guitars, and Iggy just won’t. Stop. Screaming.


4. Mogwai – ‘Without Portfolio’ Skip past the tinkly piano intro and get right into the heavy stuff – ‘With Portfolio’’s last minute-and-a-half is just one monstrous sound, going speaker to speaker ad nauseam. Another old favorite of mine, it compacts into one burst the sort of thing you’d have to wait for on songs like ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’. And there’s a great ear-rending high pitched tone as well. It doesn’t even pretend to be a song.


3. Plastikman – ‘Spastik’ But they might be getting used to noise, so switch tactics; ‘Spastik’ is one of Richie Hawtin’s drum-only tracks, relying on nothing but a steady bass thump and insanely busy snare fills to sustain itself over nine minutes. Can drive people bugfuck at normal volumes – blasted on your stereo, should make the neighbours pray for death.


2. Flying Saucer Attack – ‘Popul Vuh 2’ Instead you give them – more drums! This time the main focus here is the drone, but there are plenty of tribal drums underneath to make sure you’re properly nursing the headaches of all around you. They’ve probably called the cops by now, you’ve got maybe one more good track before they show up; what’ll it be?


1. Daft Punk – ‘Rock’n Roll’ Awwww, yeah. Another steady bass drum thump, handclaps, and that great, great keyboard noise. Some of us love it, but plenty of people (most of the population of my hometown, for example) hate it. It starts out kind of low, but by the end it’s shredded and bleeding, and so are your neighbours’ eardrums. That’ll teach ‘em to steal your laundry.