![]() Finally, last month, he dusted off his seldom-used Cosmic Surveillance alias for a self-titled album cut from even more Spartan cloth. Come September, he signed his given name to the more experimental Frozen Clock Hovering, where he grappled with depression via chilly, reverberant drones, dank as a moldy basement. Then, as Auscultation, he turned around and dropped an even more nuanced record just two months later, plunging into a shadowy netherworld of bittersweet ambient techno. Under his long-running Golden Donna alias, he released a gorgeous, emotionally complex album of hardware-centric techno in March. Q: I just discovered Sephiroth/ Ulf Söderberg and I love his work.After a few years of lying low, Portland, Oregon’s Joel Shanahan enjoyed an unusually productive year. It’s sometimes used therapeutically as a sleep aid, and it can serve as a great catalyst for creativity. ![]() It lends itself beautifully to inner journeys, mood-alteration, and meditation. Some people find it impenetrable or boring, and dismiss it as “not really music.” But there’s so much more to this misunderstood genre. Of course this is a stylistic generalization it doesn’t apply to all cases, but it’s still a useful distinction.ĭark ambient is often stereotyped (usually by outsiders) as evil, bleak, or excessively solemn. Dark ambient music centers on melancholy, somber, ominous, mysterious, and dissonant atmospheres, while ambient tends to focus more on calm, harmonic, mellow, and expansive atmospheres. Though the boundaries are sometimes blurred, most listeners would probably agree that the key element that differentiates these two genres is atmosphere.Ītmosphere refers to “set and setting,” as entheogen users say - a mood, feeling tone, or vibe. Generally, though, light and dark ambient are considered two distinct genres of electronic music. But some consider it a subgenre or offshoot of “light” or mainstream ambient. Historically speaking, the dark ambient genre has usually been considered a subgenre of industrial or post-industrial music, as it was called “ambient industrial” in the early 1990s. ![]() ![]() Typically, dark ambient is composed in a minor key and is associated with darker themes such as isolation, the primal or shadow self, underworld deities, subterranean worlds, abandoned places, etc. Q: I'm new to this kind of music so forgive me for my ignorance but what is dark ambient music and what is it all about?Ī: Dark ambient is slow-paced, drone-based, textural instrumental music that emphasizes atmospheres, soundscapes, and moods more than beats, chorus, and vocals. The waters are muddied even further by the fact that there’s a sizable chunk of dark ambient music that’s tagged as ambient, drone, dark downtempo, minimal, abstract, modern classical, film or game soundtracks, or experimental. Compare notes! The genre is larger than many people think, with more permeable boundaries than the purists will admit. While there may be some overlap with mine, tastes vary widely. I also encourage newcomers to ask other dark ambient aficionados for starter recommendations. Keep in mind that these selections prioritize accessibility for newcomers over genre-defining status per se. Included in this quick-start guide is a short list of a few respected labels and albums to help neophytes acquaint themselves with the genre. I answered with a short excerpt from an early draft of my in-progress book manuscript Endarkenment: The Esoteric in Dark Ambient Music and Culture. To respond in a way that can help other newcomers, I copied his question and other related Q-and-A here in slightly edited form. What is dark ambient music and what is it all about?Ī visitor to the Endarkenment YouTube channel, completely new to dark ambient and wondering where to begin, posed this question to me recently.
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