What is the darkest/hardest music you like?

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.

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

Actually the most intense thing about it was probably that it made me annoyed counting out time signatures the whole time.

---Oh, i also get into a bit of George Crumb's work; it's like descending into hell -- try that you nihilistic bastards.

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.

the riffs and the hair, man.... (actually I really like the sounds rhythms and textures, they could have been called Hawkwind Division)

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."

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.

i'm always looking for dark/depressing stuff. who am i kidding?

Swans.

HAHAHA I'm listening to DARKSPACE III right now!!!! Like, before I saw this thread!

There's your answer.

don't know them. do you recommend?

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.

(III is the album, btw)

cheers man. jumping on the case right now...

am going out now but do chronicle your amazement for posterity

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 :)

You sure you weren't listening to the new Muse by mistake.

hahaha. no, but those guys have disturbingly similar formula, it's true.

only time i've ever expressed any interest in muse was when i had to feign it in order to keep things on solid ground with the missus.

Don't people get burned out going down this path eventually? You end up collecting perverse shit like.....Little Marcy or records by primitives who clearly lack talent.

That said, Diamanda Galas is pretty bone-chilling. At least she has chops too. Fear the chops!

You end up collecting perverse shit like.....Little Marcy

If you came up with that reference before reading my first post way back when I salute you.

(My current real answer is probably Yanni. Wait...)

Hardest: Swans
Darkest: Stephen Jesse Bernstein's Prison, when one considers his poetic persona wasn't a character, but unmediated.

"dsrk" and "hard" are different qualities.

"Hard" but not "dark": Hecker (florian, not tim), Liturgy, Xenakis, Sciarrino

"Dark" but not "hard": Leonard Cohen circa "Songs of Love and Hate", Death in June, Blood Axis

"Dark" and "Hard": Khanate, Burning Witch, Sutcliffe Jugend, Maurizio Bianchi

The "darkest" record i know is Thee Last Supper, an LP of field recordings released by T.O.P.Y. of the night of the mass suicide at Jonestown. You can hear Jim Jones hectoring and lecturing people to commit suicide and in the background you can hear cult members (and their infants) screaming in distress and panic as they die.

rammstein

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".

I would like to say something obscure and hip but realistically it's just Slayer.

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

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

ARGH here's a version that DOESN'T chop off the last 30 seconds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBHnJNEbNZw

Xasthur can play too but I'm not linking any of his stuff tonight.

Carcass, Esoteric, Harvey Milk, dälek, Nattens madrigal

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

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

Harvey Milk are probably mine too.