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Christopher Cerf, an award-winning composer for the American children's television series Sesame Street, was so disturbed by the use of his songs as psychological torture by the US during interrogation operations in Guantanamo in 2003, that he embarked on a journey with Al Jazeera World to interview a number of scientists, US Army personnel, and ex-detainees, to learn more about the psychological effects of music, and to uncover the history and use of music in torture. Among the people Cerf interviews are a US Army interrogator, a former Guantanamo prison guard, an ex-Guantanamo and Bagram detainee who recounts the use of Metallica and Marilyn Manson in torture during his time in prison, and the heavy metal band Drowning Pool, whose song "Bodies" was dubbed an unofficial soundtrack of the US military, and whose music was also used to torture prisoners.

"Sound has been used throughout history as a way of exerting power and control. Today, hi-tech sound techniques and playlists of "extreme" music, from children's TV themes to death metal, are employed as weapons of torture and espionage. Room40 boss and experimental musician Lawrence English explores the phenomenon and explains the impact sound has on all of us."

"This article seeks to explore the manifold ways in which carceral violence and acoustics intermingle, as manifested in the case of the military prison of Saydnaya-an infamous, state-run torture jail in Syria. As revealed by survivors' ear-testimonies and by the recent digital reconstruction of the prison's interior (available on the Amnesty International website), sound seems integral to the dynamics of power at play in the Syrian prison. A great part of the violence committed there is acoustic, one that is meticulously based on defining properties of the aural experience. "

"Award-winning musician Christopher Cerf has composed music for the famous children's television show Sesame Street for 40 years. During this time, he has written more than 200 songs intended to help children learn how to read and write. But these innocent children's songs were abused for inhumane purposes."