But for dark/difficult, I'd say J. S. Bach. It drove Glenn Gould near insane.
Of guitar bands, I once had a tune on a mix-tape I'd been given called 'Wild Couple' that was extremely noisy and enraged. (I'd appreciate knowing who the band was if someone knows. I remember the recurring line 'Don't they make a wild couple!' It may be a band familiar to indie kids .. the rest of the mixtape was stuff like Sonic Youth, Lou Barlow, Pavement, Palace Bros.)
― mick hall, Monday, 24 February 2003 16:48 (twenty-one years ago) link
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 24 February 2003 17:12 (twenty-one years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Monday, 24 February 2003 17:18 (twenty-one years ago) link
(Another good really "dark" Wu Tang-affiliated album is the Ghost Dog soundtrack.)
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 24 February 2003 17:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
― your null fame (yournullfame), Monday, 24 February 2003 17:25 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 24 February 2003 21:14 (twenty-one years ago) link
― duane, Monday, 24 February 2003 21:27 (twenty-one years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Monday, 24 February 2003 21:35 (twenty-one years ago) link
I used to listen to a lot of death metal but even that wasn't so extreme,[...]
then you need to listen to gorguts' _obscura_, goddamit.
as an aside, this marks the fifth time today i've seen someone say that"(x free jazz album) is MORE INTENSE than (whatever metal they listened to in high school)."''
hahaha!!!
yeah...there's not too much that's hard abt good ol' heavy metal (doesn't mean its bad or anything but a lot of heavy metal is sold on the 'its so hard' but there I am being bored by it all) but some free jazz stuff can really split heads and they were prob not even trying to do 'be hard' or any of that crap. oh, the ironing.
I don't think a lot of music that could be classified as 'hard' is 'hard'. its not abt difficulty in listening or anything. a lot of music presents a challenge and i try to engage with it and even if it appears unlistenable on the surface isn't really.
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 24 February 2003 21:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
― duane, Monday, 24 February 2003 21:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 24 February 2003 22:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― duane, Monday, 24 February 2003 22:04 (twenty-one years ago) link
Dark (in the heavy by borderline goofy way): Sleep, SLEEP'S HOLY MOUNTAIN; JERUSALEM
Dark (in the reflecting the tormented human soul) Johnny Cash, take yer pick
― jodi shapiro (burun), Monday, 24 February 2003 22:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
― gaz (gaz), Monday, 24 February 2003 22:08 (twenty-one years ago) link
― michael wells (michael w.), Monday, 24 February 2003 22:10 (twenty-one years ago) link
― jodi shapiro (burun), Monday, 24 February 2003 22:11 (twenty-one years ago) link
― duane, Monday, 24 February 2003 22:12 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 24 February 2003 22:13 (twenty-one years ago) link
― A Nairn (moretap), Monday, 24 February 2003 22:18 (twenty-one years ago) link
― jodi shapiro (burun), Monday, 24 February 2003 22:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Siegbran (eofor), Monday, 24 February 2003 22:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 24 February 2003 22:25 (twenty-one years ago) link
― gaz (gaz), Monday, 24 February 2003 22:34 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 24 February 2003 22:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
― ambrose (ambrose), Monday, 24 February 2003 23:59 (twenty-one years ago) link
Actually the most intense thing about it was probably that it made me annoyed counting out time signatures the whole time.
― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 25 February 2003 02:22 (twenty-one years ago) link
---Oh, i also get into a bit of George Crumb's work; it's like descending into hell -- try that you nihilistic bastards.
― christoff (christoff), Tuesday, 25 February 2003 14:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ian Johnson, Tuesday, 25 February 2003 20:22 (twenty-one years ago) link
― your null fame (yournullfame), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 01:51 (twenty-one years ago) link
― John Bullabaugh (John Bullabaugh), Friday, 23 May 2003 12:26 (twenty years ago) link
― JP Almeida (JP Almeida), Friday, 23 May 2003 13:26 (twenty years ago) link
― janni (janni), Friday, 23 May 2003 13:37 (twenty years ago) link
― praying mantis (praying mantis), Friday, 23 May 2003 17:42 (twenty years ago) link
Can it be?...
A thread on "dark" and "hard" music, and we've made it this far without one mention of the man often referred to as "the Prince of Darkness", Mr. Miles friggin Davis?
One of the only musicians whose music has honest-to-God SCARED me, that man is.
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 23 May 2003 18:27 (twenty years ago) link
― Mike Taylor (mjt), Friday, 23 May 2003 19:11 (twenty years ago) link
the riffs and the hair, man.... (actually I really like the sounds rhythms and textures, they could have been called Hawkwind Division)
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 23 May 2003 20:08 (twenty years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 23 May 2003 20:09 (twenty years ago) link
― Jrvision (visionjr), Friday, 23 May 2003 21:22 (twenty years ago) link
― Jrvision (visionjr), Friday, 23 May 2003 21:23 (twenty years ago) link
Siouxsie's "Nicotine Stain" also one of the scarier tunes I've ever heard; brilliantly sampled by Mad Professor on his remix for Massive Attack's "Superpredators."
― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Friday, 23 May 2003 21:52 (twenty years ago) link
one of the darkest albums i know is 'turn loose the swans' by my dying bride.that said, i think certain songs/albums by say swans or ministry are pretty dark on that stripped back, nihilistic level.
― Charlie Howard, Saturday, 26 September 2009 14:00 (fourteen years ago) link
i'm always looking for dark/depressing stuff. who am i kidding?
― Charlie Howard, Saturday, 26 September 2009 14:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Swans.
― Alex in NYC, Saturday, 26 September 2009 14:02 (fourteen years ago) link
HAHAHA I'm listening to DARKSPACE III right now!!!! Like, before I saw this thread!
There's your answer.
― should probably be practising shorthand (country matters), Saturday, 26 September 2009 14:03 (fourteen years ago) link
don't know them. do you recommend?
― Charlie Howard, Saturday, 26 September 2009 14:04 (fourteen years ago) link
It's absolutely stone-dead phenomenal. In my decade top 20, probably, once I get my head round it all. You'll go mental for it.
― should probably be practising shorthand (country matters), Saturday, 26 September 2009 14:05 (fourteen years ago) link
(III is the album, btw)
cheers man. jumping on the case right now...
― Charlie Howard, Saturday, 26 September 2009 14:07 (fourteen years ago) link
am going out now but do chronicle your amazement for posterity
― should probably be practising shorthand (country matters), Saturday, 26 September 2009 14:10 (fourteen years ago) link
just listened to 'dark 3.14' off that record. astounding. builds up incrementally over 4 minutes, then settles into a kind of groove, then gets unexpectedly fast, then segues into my favourite bit - the atmospheric outro, which benefits as much from its repetitiveness as its sense of epic vacuousness ... what a journey. fantastic stuff :)
― Charlie Howard, Saturday, 26 September 2009 14:38 (fourteen years ago) link
miles davis - black beauty: live at filmore west
deep n hard psychofunk
― sawan, Monday, 20 September 2010 18:23 (thirteen years ago) link
xp: ow my eyes.
― kkvgz, Monday, 20 September 2010 18:29 (thirteen years ago) link
i know i've listened to asshole / snail dilemma but i can't remember it! dark n hard is techno / dub for me these days, something with a lot of structure.
― Matt P, Monday, 20 September 2010 18:42 (thirteen years ago) link
metal if i listened to any
― Matt P, Monday, 20 September 2010 18:43 (thirteen years ago) link
I like Current 93 they don't really have talent just great ideas, major turnoff for people who think they know what talent is.
o_O ??
― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Monday, 20 September 2010 18:51 (thirteen years ago) link
links to a wilco bootleg, go for it― Ward Fowler, Monday, September 20, 2010 2:17 PM
― Ward Fowler, Monday, September 20, 2010 2:17 PM
<3
― I'm just Grinderman, y'all never mind me (markers), Monday, 20 September 2010 19:17 (thirteen years ago) link
New Order - Sunrise is as hard as i can handle.
― brotherlovesdub, Monday, 20 September 2010 19:38 (thirteen years ago) link
bleakest album:
Peter Sotos "Buyer's Market"
it's a collage/cut-up of personal, first hand testimony sourced from mainstream TV, radio and documentaries in which victims of abuse talk about being sexually molested, raped, exploited; prostitutes describe violent and awful experiences; crying children narrate their own sexual abuse; and family members sob about the torture and murder of their loved ones.
what makes it especially disturbing is the way that the collation/editing/presentation of it seems to conjure up the question of whether or not it is used by Peter Sotos to get off on these descriptions of violence and cruelty, and in order to work that out, your own imagination gets fired up with "would this thing turn me on if I was some kind of pedophile creep?", and *that very structure of vicarious participation* is, I think, what the record is supposed to be about- the "Buyer's Market" is the mainstream media feeding frenzy for authenticity/realness, hypocritically tsk-tsk-ing about the very atrocities it serves up
and yet (and here's the second twist) the claim that this record is about media seems like a convenient pseudo-intellectual / falsely "critical" fig-leaf to cover up a pretty basic and super fucked up enjoyment in other people describing pretty unimaginably horrific experiences.
So, i would say, hands down, this is the darkest/hardest-to-listen-to record I own.
You feel disgusted with yourself after you listen to it, like you need a shower or something.
― the tune is space, Monday, 20 September 2010 19:47 (thirteen years ago) link
rammstein
― cambyrdsclosetvacuumsounds4fun (acoleuthic), Monday, 20 September 2010 19:53 (thirteen years ago) link
oh, just noticed that thread title is "music you like", not "record you own"
diff question.
I'd say the darkest *music* would be:
Brainbombs "Urge to Kill" Sutcliffe Jugend "When Pornography Is No Longer Enough"
which take the Sotos-style scenarios of rape, murder, molestation, kidnapping and abuse and set them to heavy post-Stooges psych rock (Brianbombs) and Whitehouse-style power electronics (Sutcliffe Juged) respectively. They are both *great* as completely demanding, powerful, un-ignorable musical experiences. and yet also beg a lot of the same questions of intent / moral complicity / false-critique that the Sotos does, while actually being, you know, "music".
― the tune is space, Monday, 20 September 2010 19:53 (thirteen years ago) link
I would like to say something obscure and hip but realistically it's just Slayer.
― no gut busting joke can change history (polyphonic), Monday, 20 September 2010 19:57 (thirteen years ago) link
hahahaha thank god you've allowed me to retract that rather stupid joke - would listen to those records! my favourite foetus song is narrated from a paedophile's POV - sometimes this stuff is highly compelling psychological engagement rather than exploitative trash
xp
― cambyrdsclosetvacuumsounds4fun (acoleuthic), Monday, 20 September 2010 19:57 (thirteen years ago) link
my actual answer to this question? tough - would probably say something like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf0qaIzaYDc
or this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkh2W0Le4Mo
^^^^^^^so, so, so, so, so, so good
― cambyrdsclosetvacuumsounds4fun (acoleuthic), Monday, 20 September 2010 20:07 (thirteen years ago) link
ARGH here's a version that DOESN'T chop off the last 30 seconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBHnJNEbNZw
― cambyrdsclosetvacuumsounds4fun (acoleuthic), Monday, 20 September 2010 20:08 (thirteen years ago) link
Xasthur can play too but I'm not linking any of his stuff tonight.
― cambyrdsclosetvacuumsounds4fun (acoleuthic), Monday, 20 September 2010 20:12 (thirteen years ago) link
Carcass, Esoteric, Harvey Milk, dälek, Nattens madrigal
― Brad C., Monday, 20 September 2010 20:19 (thirteen years ago) link
ok I really like three of those and would probably dig the other two so yeah that post can be added to my own tentative list
― cambyrdsclosetvacuumsounds4fun (acoleuthic), Monday, 20 September 2010 20:24 (thirteen years ago) link
dälek is probably my favourite discovery of 2010 and their stuff kills like little else...esoteric's last album was a terrifying, overwhelming blinder, nattens madrigal is fury on tape
― cambyrdsclosetvacuumsounds4fun (acoleuthic), Monday, 20 September 2010 20:26 (thirteen years ago) link
Harvey Milk are probably mine too.
― Neil S, Monday, 20 September 2010 20:34 (thirteen years ago) link