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Thread: Why the appeal of dark music?

  1. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by Rune Blackwings View Post
    I think Blasphemer's post Mayhem work with Ava Inferi and for the Where Purgatory Ends art show and the Profane Exhibit are pretty dark without being "cartoonish".
    Jen, one of extremely few Norwegian (i.e. "real" ) out-metal releases I heard with snippets of actual darkness to it, was the Ved Buens Ende album from 20+ years ago. Quite possibly because those dudes were among the only ones to spend any time reading and contemplating the true nature not of any "animated death" but of life. The main trap of "cartoon metal" is the constant allusion to supernatural beings and the supposedly divine, thus exposing the infantility of "belief" (and the fact that purveyors often came reluctantly of age from watching horror movies, not from intinctive acts of epistemology) - as a token to the conundrum of human longing versus doubt. Having myself been in effect dead and revived in 2006, there was only confirmation of oblivion in that "beyond" I saw - nothing even remotely other. Darkness, to me, is nothingness and the tragedy of expectance - as articulated by Camus and, more lately, C. McCarthy a.o.

    Other than that, from here, arctic progressive band Thule showcased genuine darkness on Natt ("Night", 1989) and Graks (1997) especially. Earlier Norwegian avant-rock band Holy Toy - led by bizarro oddball troubleman and multi-artist Adreij Dziubek Nebb (originally a refugee from Poland) - were the darkest project ever to form up here.

    Lach'n Jonsson's "Monument" - from his Songs from Cities of Decay - is possibly the darkest thing I encountered from a musician even distantly associated with rock music. In the summer of 2013, constant listening to this brought me 75 hours of sleep deprivation. Bad days.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  2. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by Vic2012 View Post
    If the devil himself played guitar he'd play a Gibson SG and he'd look like Tony Iommi.
    I don't know what guitar he'd play or who'd he look like, but he'd playing in Kenny G's backup band.

  3. #53
    Oh No! Bass Solo! klothos's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    I don't know what guitar he'd play or who'd he look like, but he'd playing in Kenny G's backup band.
    win

  4. #54
    Member Digital_Man's Avatar
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    You could also ask why do some people like horror movies? As Tony Iommi said in the heavy metal documentary there's an appeal of the dark side(or something to that effect).

  5. #55
    The appeal of dark music is the feeling it will invoke. The unexplained. The feeling is like Gnosis in the sense that you know you feel something real, but you have little words to describe it. The most basic explanation of Gnosis is set by that example. This can be felt through the music of Art Zoyd, Patricia Dallio, Univers Zero, Rational Diet, Bella Bartok, George Crumb, Peter Maxwell Davies and the feeling is mainly guided by instruments projecting a dark sound... as if it's music from the underworld , ( to some people), and causes their mind to dream of dark realities. It's a perfectly normal process, but who wants to daydream about dark things? A minority. But then again... why do those same candidates watch Hollywood Horror films? Why do they cringe when dark music is playing ... but yet allow themselves to be sucked into a movie based on a story about a sick sadistic killer? Maybe because they have no imagination? Possibly they can only be scared by something that is physically present before their eyes?... as opposed to something very creepy which is present that they cannot see? I've always wondered how that mind set works. A person of this character will watch a documentary on 4 teenage girls torturing a 12 year old, but if they walk into a room where I'm listening to Univers Zero, they gawk, cringe, and glance around the room to see if pentagrams are hanging or Witchcraft books on a shelf. "What are you into?" If they hear Stomu Yamashta's Iroha ( Ka), they exit the room. They show interest in horror films, documentaries about serial killers, and the occult, but dark music means it is time to exit the door. I don't understand that reaction from an abundance of humans in our social environment.
    Last edited by Enid; 02-09-2017 at 01:25 PM.

  6. #56
    Quote Originally Posted by Digital_Man View Post
    You could also ask why do some people like horror movies? As Tony Iommi said in the heavy metal documentary there's an appeal of the dark side(or something to that effect).

    Not comparable at all, AFaIC. "Horror movies" are essentially mere entertainment and trick, like visiting an amusement park (you don't seriously think people would attend those rollercoasters if they didn't feel 100% safe, do you? I was in one that crashed, btw - Cederholm/Lunds traveling Tivoli at Nygårdstangen in Bergen on May 24. 1985 - I had a bone sticking out of my arm afterwards); you do however not listen to Michael Gira's "Failure" to be entertained - it's cathartic in that it tells something irrevocably true about human existence at large. While 'The Conjuring' most certainly doesn't, and neither does 'The Exorcist' - the latter a fantastic flick and a superb work of art nonetheless (and in fact one that does reveal something about the patterns of the mind, the mind of its viewer).

    Cathartic implies an effect of cleansing, in that you're washed afresh by the subjective - and consequently can't return to who you were before impact.

    I was a huge Sabbath fan once, but I didn't see much "darkness" in them either. Freaky, groovy, cool and outlandish, but not "dark".
    Last edited by Scrotum Scissor; 02-09-2017 at 02:53 AM.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  7. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by 2steves View Post
    Is some of KC dark music?
    Yeah, they never recorded really "happy" song.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Trane View Post
    is it, though??


  9. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by 2steves View Post
    I find some of VDGG dark and neurotic
    VDGG were the darkest band in the 70s British Premier League.

  10. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by Svetonio View Post
    VDGG were the darkest band in the 70s British Premier League.
    True. And if you read the columns of the music press from back then, they were actually known for it.

    When Mark E. Smith (of The Fall) is such a huge admirer of allthings Hammill/VdGG, it's not because he happened to come across an album or two in a throwaway bin - he was there and witnessed the spectacle of VdGG concerts on the club Circuit in '69-72.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

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    Last edited by Svetonio; 02-09-2017 at 03:45 AM.

  12. #62
    That's Mr. to you, Sir!! Trane's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Enid View Post
    The appeal of dark music is the feeling it envokes. The unexplained. The feeling is like Gnosis in the sense that you know you feel something real, but you have little words to describe it. The most basic explanation of Gnosis is set by that example. This can be felt through the music of Art Zoyd, Patricia Dallio, Univers Zero, Rational Diet, Bella Bartok, George Crumb, Peter Maxwell Davies and the feeling is mainly guided by instruments projecting a dark sound... as if it's music from the underworld , ( to some people), and causes their mind to dream of dark realities. It's a perfectly normal process, but who wants to daydream about dark things? A minority. But then again... why do those same candidates watch Hollywood Horror films? Why do they cringe when dark music is playing ... but yet allow themselves to be sucked into a movie based on a story about a sick sadistic killer? Maybe because they have no imagination? Possibly they can only be scared by something that is physically present before their eyes?... as opposed to something very creepy which is present that they cannot see? I've always wondered how that mind set works. A person of this character will watch a documentary on 4 teenage girls torturing a 12 year old, but if they walk into a room where I'm listening to Univers Zero, they gawk, cringe, and glance around the room to see if pentagrams are hanging or Witchcraft books on a shelf. "What are you into?" If they hear Stomu Yamashta's Iroha ( Ka), they exit the room. They show interest in horror films, documentaries about serial killers, and the occult, but dark music means it is time to exit the door. I don't understand that reaction from an abundance of humans in our social environment.
    Good points, but I'd say that horror movie buffs is somewhat different publics : weirdoes (those who become obsessed) and mainstream (just getting entertained by being scared for the duration of the film)
    There used to be the FFF in Brussels (festival film fantastique) and the closing night had people dressing up (like they would on Halloween night) and having a ball


    I tend to separate the different kinds of "dark" music
    the horror/evil stuff (like Sab, My Dying Bride or Doom Metal)
    depressive music (Nick Drake or some John Martyn)
    really sombre RIO stuff (like AZ or UZ or in its apex form Shub-Niggurath... or Comus, for ex)
    Goth rock (thinking of early Dead Can Dance, for ex)
    Crimson and VdGG (which I will discard for this precise purpose)


    No doubt the first & third & fourth read the same kind of books, but the evil/horror and Goth guys are more like comics/cartoon-style stuff for kids (I'm not saying these Norwegian black-metalers are either kids or sweet dudes or criminals), whereas UZ, Shub or Present's seemed to be like the university of sinister music. Personally, I don't understand how, if they're serious about their dark music love, MDB fan (for ex) can't enter UZ or AZ's realms. Is it the lack of evil lyrics? or the fact that those bands are (almost) totally instrumental? Or maybe they think these RIO bands are just too spooky for them and their toyful & joyless music. I mean it's not like these extreme doom/black metals are not into somewhat complex music either.
    my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.

  13. #63
    Member Zeuhlmate's Avatar
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    Towering inferno - khaddish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iw34CD3lZo was rather dark

  14. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by Trane View Post
    Good points, but I'd say that horror movie buffs is somewhat different publics : weirdoes (those who become obsessed) and mainstream (just getting entertained by being scared for the duration of the film)
    There used to be the FFF in Brussels (festival film fantastique) and the closing night had people dressing up (like they would on Halloween night) and having a ball


    I tend to separate the different kinds of "dark" music
    the horror/evil stuff (like Sab, My Dying Bride or Doom Metal)
    depressive music (Nick Drake or some John Martyn)
    really sombre RIO stuff (like AZ or UZ or in its apex form Shub-Niggurath... or Comus, for ex)
    Goth rock (thinking of early Dead Can Dance, for ex)
    Crimson and VdGG (which I will discard for this precise purpose)


    No doubt the first & third & fourth read the same kind of books, but the evil/horror and Goth guys are more like comics/cartoon-style stuff for kids (I'm not saying these Norwegian black-metalers are either kids or sweet dudes or criminals), whereas UZ, Shub or Present's seemed to be like the university of sinister music. Personally, I don't understand how, if they're serious about their dark music love, MDB fan (for ex) can't enter UZ or AZ's realms. Is it the lack of evil lyrics? or the fact that those bands are (almost) totally instrumental? Or maybe they think these RIO bands are just too spooky for them and their toyful & joyless music. I mean it's not like these extreme doom/black metals are not into somewhat complex music either.

    Great points. a pleasure to read

  15. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by Trane View Post
    the evil/horror and Goth guys are more like comics/cartoon-style stuff for kids (I'm not saying these Norwegian black-metalers are either kids or sweet dudes or criminals), whereas UZ, Shub or Present's seemed to be like the university of sinister music. Personally, I don't understand how, if they're serious about their dark music love, MDB fan (for ex) can't enter UZ or AZ's realms. Is it the lack of evil lyrics? Or the fact that those bands are (almost) totally instrumental? Or maybe they think these RIO bands are just too spooky for them and their toyful & joyless music. I mean it's not like these extreme doom/black metals are not into somewhat complex music either.
    I have known several rather substantial figures in that milieu, and I'd say "either kids or ssweet dudes or criminals" fits pretty spot on, actually. Role-playing zit-freaks who weren't invited to the neck-parties by their fellow schoolpupils and constructed a whole "alternative" explanation rendering the reasons why. Banale, isn't it? Yet oh so poignant as far as many of those guys went; there was no generational turmoil, no artistic or political or ideological or religious "consciousness", no true social misfitting. There was simply just too little fucking attention - so they'd better generate a new channel for it.

    And you're right about questioning why it often took them 25 years to grow sufficiently "mature" for the intake of dark articulation beyond the "enhanced Kiss/Mötley/W.A.S.P. antic"; it's all in the social and aesthetic habitus. Some "proggers" are dead afraid of that which involves too many laptops, to few "ordinary" drumsets and too much strange instrumentation or inspiration or influence, so they initiate each new listen by activating the impulse of recognition and convention - and voila, there's your 27 min. epic faithfully and supposedly thankfully still resorting to Bon Jovian/Leppard'ian lore in the end. Even more "metallers" would run away screaming at the very thought of a transsexual bagpipeplayer as lead frontman or band members consistently wearing tangas or a drummer donning Downs syndrome. And again there's the expectancy that somehow everything "new" should enhance an already established confirmation of connections and "truths". Most consumers shun the act of exploring if this may lead to necessities of reevaluation.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  16. #66
    Oh No! Bass Solo! klothos's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    I have known several rather substantial figures in that milieu, and I'd say "either kids or ssweet dudes or criminals" fits pretty spot on, actually. Role-playing zit-freaks who weren't invited to the neck-parties by their fellow schoolpupils and constructed a whole "alternative" explanation rendering the reasons why. Banale, isn't it? Yet oh so poignant as far as many of those guys went; there was no generational turmoil, no artistic or political or ideological or religious "consciousness", no true social misfitting. There was simply just too little fucking attention - so they'd better generate a new channel for it.
    of my friends that were (and the few that still are) involved in the black metal music scene as bands or the scene in general, this is very true.......a good percentage of these guys (not all are kids anymore) have a high probability of having a 20-sided-die in their pocket......

  17. #67
    The idea to write Chamber Rock or R.I.O. evolved out of the appreciation for 20th Century Avant-Garde composers. It is evident through some deep detailed observation. It's ridiculously obvious if you've been playing an instrument most of your life. Henry Cow's Western Culture seemed a logical choice as to where R.I.O. all began. R.I.O. was a step forward and with most bands it actually obtained a style of its own. Even though it was influenced by Bella Bartok, Edgar Varese, or King Crimson, it created a sound and approach of its own. This was sinister sounding, mysterious at times, and aggressively intruding upon one's ear. It did not differ all that much from Bernard Hermann's "The Day The Earth Stood Still" Pieces/excerpts like "Radar", "The Robot" and "Terror" are partially the beginning of a structure which would later be fixed with Rock.
    I believe that Frank Zappa had already been experimenting combining the two, Avant-Garde and Rock prior to most artists in the 60's. Some of his earliest attempts at instrumentals are reminiscent of Canterbury and Chamber Rock.

    Beginning with King Crimson on the first 4 albums where Robert Fripp 's ideas IMO derived from what had been displayed before to an extreme point with an orchestra or string quartet. Such as some of his noodling on "Moonchild" sounded familiar to me. As if he heard sections of George Crumb Black Angels or in point he was influenced by a darker kind of music that he wished to incorporate into his own band. In the end, he included a violinist, David Cross and this gave the band an essence of Bartok's darkside and most importantly attributed to the sound of R.I.O. Two examples being Univers Zero and Finnegan's Wake. However it is more to understand that Chamber Rock structure was invented through experimentation and Avant-Garde composition in the 20th Century. Dating back to 1915 with "Pratella L'Aviatore Dro" composed by Francesco Balilla. This was a dark style of music that a musician could expand from, draw from, and further create something new . Something which was borrowed to degrees but very original and created a path for many bands and ensembles to follow.
    Last edited by Enid; 02-09-2017 at 02:51 PM.

  18. #68
    Member Vic2012's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    I don't know what guitar he'd play or who'd he look like, but he'd playing in Kenny G's backup band.
    The Gibson SG is a demonic, destructive force. It has horns........


  19. #69
    Pendulumswingingdoomsday Rune Blackwings's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    Jen, one of extremely few Norwegian (i.e. "real" ) out-metal releases I heard with snippets of actual darkness to it, was the Ved Buens Ende album from 20+ years ago. Quite possibly because those dudes were among the only ones to spend any time reading and contemplating the true nature not of any "animated death" but of life. The main trap of "cartoon metal" is the constant allusion to supernatural beings and the supposedly divine, thus exposing the infantility of "belief" (and the fact that purveyors often came reluctantly of age from watching horror movies, not from intinctive acts of epistemology) - as a token to the conundrum of human longing versus doubt. Having myself been in effect dead and revived in 2006, there was only confirmation of oblivion in that "beyond" I saw - nothing even remotely other. Darkness, to me, is nothingness and the tragedy of expectance - as articulated by Camus and, more lately, C. McCarthy a.o.

    Other than that, from here, arctic progressive band Thule showcased genuine darkness on Natt ("Night", 1989) and Graks (1997) especially. Earlier Norwegian avant-rock band Holy Toy - led by bizarro oddball troubleman and multi-artist Adreij Dziubek Nebb (originally a refugee from Poland) - were the darkest project ever to form up here.

    Lach'n Jonsson's "Monument" - from his Songs from Cities of Decay - is possibly the darkest thing I encountered from a musician even distantly associated with rock music. In the summer of 2013, constant listening to this brought me 75 hours of sleep deprivation. Bad days.
    I personally do not find the supernatural an infantile theme. In fact, I actually believe in it myself. There are things that occurred in my life that leads me to hold this belief. I will not speak any further. I am already construed as something of joke and if I explained, it would add too much "ammo".

    I actually do enjoy Norwegian music. There is a feeling in much of it that I think could only come from someone in such a place-beautiful but rather bleak.


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  22. #72
    Right.....Family! A eclectic band in the late 60's, early 70's. Very peculiar for their time ... as I felt the band did not have a direction at all. That was a positive. You never knew what style of a song you were about to hear, unlike King Crimson, Moody Blues, and The Nice who seemed to display existing patterns. While Family had no pattern at all. You could pick a song from Dolls House, Entertainment, Anyway, Fearless, and it was like sampling 4 different bands. Their identity was in the vocals and to hear this band during that time period was very, very strange.

    American Electronic Music in the 60's and early 70's was very haunting for the times. In A Wild Sanctuary and Gandharva by Beaver and Krause were innovative albums. Particularly Gandharva which featured the first and unlike no other experimentation of assembling certain instruments to be played and recorded in a Cathedral . The Grace Cathedral recordings are dark, melodic, atmospheric, and spiritual. Eventually when the Electronic music scene took over in Berlin I was fanatical collector for years . I was a fan of Pauline Oliveros and John Cage... but the day I heard Tangerine Dream's Atem and Zeit, I was awoken to a new way of producing Soundscapes. Better known to me as Darkscapes. In the 80's I liked Pauline Anna Strom's "Spectre". Robert Schroeder, Klaus Schulze, Synergy, the list kept expanding. Early Neuronium albums that featured paintings of aliens...It was all very dark and during live transmission created a visual with lights and film. Eventually I grew tired and bored with the style itself. There were just too many participants playing the game to sound like Klaus Schulze or Tangerine Dream. I spent more time listening to Popol Vuh. They are spiritual and at times can be spiritually dark.

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  24. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by Vic2012 View Post
    The Gibson SG is a demonic, destructive force. It has horns.
    I still have mine, although I've long since stopped playing it. But then again I also stopped listening to Tony Iommi nearly eight years before buying it. He was not the reason. Cipollina, Phillips, Stephens and Göttsching were, IIRC.

    And the axe never had any horns.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  25. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by Rune Blackwings View Post
    I personally do not find the supernatural an infantile theme. In fact, I actually believe in it myself.
    Your prerogative, and one which many would envy you. Emptiness is not always bliss to the majority of folks, and if there's nothingness at hand for you in the end - which it definitely was for me; well, then there's equally nothing to worry about either. No "room" for you to contemplate regrets.

    Like I said, I've had enough "occurrences" in my own life to "logically" be tempted into renewed belief (I was raised Christian) - yet the actual effect was the exact opposite. I'm not necessarily happy about it, but one can only fool oneself so many times and oh for so long.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

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