'Creepy' ambient music

There you are Gaz. Er, no, there isn't.

i actually have a disc anyway :-). (btw, and off thread WKOSA...you have any recordings?)

Yes, I do! Bits and pieces on DAT all over the place. You want?

of course. email me?

All the ZF recommendations are good ones - I also wanna toss in the last one The Decriminalization Of Country Music

All this is ok, but the scariest thing on the market is by far In Slaughter Natives (and a lot of the stuff on their label).
Eat yr teddy bearz Zoviet France!

How comes no one has mentioned ZF's Digilogue yet? It's their only really creepy album.

pre-folk Current 93(Dogs Blood Rising, In Menstrual night, etc.)
Byzantine Flowers by SPK

i nominate 50% of coil's entire catalog to OWN this thread, particularly their work as the time machiens and musick to play in the dark.

i guess i might as well say "bernard gunther" here like you'd expect of me - julio you should get some Bernie. he's wild! bin listening to it a lot recently in an effort to CALM DOWN!!! grrr frickin stupid creepy noises!

all right bob i'll get some bernie

time dreaming itself
for mark rothko
crossing the river (night music)
un peu.. ( nearly NO tonality on this one )
redshift / abscheid.
thing is they're so nothingy i'm rarely in the mood for them they're so good when i am tho. useless if you live near traffic or with other people. (passing aeroplane obscures the bit you've been waiting through 1/2 hr of silence for)

Check out telefon tel aviv (artist), their song entitled "sound in a dark room" will you take you to a place (mentally) that is undescribable. Let me know what you think of it. Make sure to turn it up very loud and go ahead and fire up a joint to get in the mood.

Nic Endo - Cold Metal Perfection

*zoviet-france* recommendation seconded. "Collusion" as an intro also seconded. Download: "Something This Beautiful," "White Dusk."

Coil's "Black Light District" also seconded.

Thomas Köner's "Permafrost" is also something to look out for.

Extended Organ - XOXO (LAMFS-connected group with Paul McCarthy)
IIRC, the review in the Wire accurately compared it to the sound of crawling through a tunnel of slime.

Also, I was listening to the first Pan American CD at work a few weeks ago and was told it was "morbid." (Perhaps it's a little too much on the tuneful side for this thread, though...)

deathprod's "dead people's things" (from the new 'morals and dogma' cd) should fit the bill.

I'll add to Mr. Diamond's excellent Nurse With Wound suggestions Spiral Insana. More creepy crawly scariness.

Forma Tadre. It sounds like The Krell in Forbidden Planet.

50% of anything distributed by World Serpent.

haha i just opened this thread to mention the rancho relaxo track off live at the love parade only to find that i already did last year...

In Slaughter Natives own this thread

Some of the creepiest stuff I've heard is Tertium Non Data's first album, 'The Third is Not Given.' A couple of others (Dark Ambient and some not so): Yen Pox, Michael Sandler, Seleenblut, Cranioclast, Michael J. Schumacher, Gordon Rhynes, Jim Cole, Bloodbox, Wilt, Veinke, Michael Schmickler, Oophoi, Profane Grace, Nordvargr, Svartsinn, Anenzephaila, Tom Heasley, Raphael Toral, Aidan Baker, Haslem, Hands To, Janek Schaefer, Brent Gutzeit, Sator Absentia, Five Thousand Spirits, Sola Translatio, Ulf Söderberg, Simulacrum, SETI, Bernhard Gunter, M. Griffin, The Grey Wolves, Will Green, Klaus Wiese, Matthew Grassow, GAS, Frequency Curtain, Formal Logic Decay, Gruntsplatter, Helium Vola, Subterranean Source, Onirot, I Burn, Silent Watcher of Dark Matter, Negru Pvlse, The [law Rah] Collective, Brandon Labelle, Murmer, Mimir, Isomorph, Sephiroth, Inanna, Inade, Schloss Tegal, Thomas Koner, Herbst9, Giancarlo Toniuttti, Murderous Vision, Kontakt der Junglinge, Omit, Klood, Darren Tate, Robin Storey & Nigel Ayers, Kenotaph, Roland Kayn, Jarl, THO-SO-AA, Em, Kim Cascone, Deison, Hazard, Tam Quam Tabula Rosa, Alio Die (some), Mark Rownd, Ond, Agnivolok, Dual, Organum (David Jackman), Ganzfeld, 4m33s, Embracing The Glass, Igneous Flame, Matt Borghi (some), Acclimate, Enshrouded Whisper, True Colour of Blood, Stephen, Encomiast, Gustaf Hildebrand, HyperExMachina, Starfrost, Aube, Aal, Turbund Strumwerk, Hybryds, ID Battery, John Hudak, Hlidolf, Iszoloscope, His Divine GraceMarspitter, Letum, Soulcrush, Francisco Lopez, Chris Meloche, David Maranha, Lithivm, Instincts, Maeror Tri (some) & Troum (some), Lux Mammoth, Charun, Lunar Abyss Quartet, Love Power Experiment, Lotus Eaters, No No Orchestra, Nimh, Marax, Soldnergeist, Ordeal, Sleep Research Facility, Christopher Short, Predominance, Omei, Cisfinitum, Tehom, Samsa, Mathieu Ruhlmann, Morphogenesis, Steve Roden, Nick Parkin, Ovum, Osso Exotico, Zero Ohms, Moan, JGrzinich, Olhon, Novatron, Christian Renou, Christoph Heeman, RAAN, Pholde, Dronaement, PGR, Arcane Device, Stephen Philips, DreamSTATE, Deep Chill Network, Lull, Lustmord, Phause, Tarkatak, Penumbra, Pax Corda, Richard Chartier, Ruhr Hunter, Invercauld, Shinjuku Thief, SanReiSei, Ran Kirlian, Raison d'Etre, James Plotkin's & Mick Harris' 'Collapse' album, Omenya, Temperature Within, Chaos As Shelter, Nothing, Cordell Klier, Veil of Secrecy, Veiled Illusions, Tribes of Neurot, Toy Bizarre, Bad Sector, Northaunt, Tidal, Bardoseneticcube, Kammarheit, Caul, Bestia Centauri, Heath Yonaites, Amongst Myselves, Amon, Never Known, No Festival of Light, Where, Voice Transmissions With The Deceased, Asmorod, Seth Nehil, Chris Hutton, Negative Thought, Atom Infant Incubator, Ex.Order, Aeolian String Ensemble, A Produce, Land:Fire, Band of Pain, Moljebka Pulse, En Nihil, John Duncan, Jonathan Coleclough, Andrew Chalk, Darkened Soul, Crawl Unit, Elektro Nova, MNortham, Delerium, Etere-o, Cold Electric Fire, ANGELswing, Colin Potter, Aglaia, Erinys, Paul Bradley, Drift, Exotoendo, Ambre, Desiderii Marginis, Hollow Earth, Mindspawn, Heid, Entarte, Daniel Menche, Final, Clop Neplat, Megaptera, Diaz-Infante, LS-TTL, Legion, Alan Lamb, Randy Grief, Akkron, Matthew Florianz, Cheryl-O, Dense Vision Shrine, Ah Cama Sotz, Exsanguinate, Dolman, Michael Prime, Igor Krutogolov, Brendan Walls, Monstare, Endvra, Joe Colley, Darkness Enshroud, Porteur de L’Image, Beyond Sensory Experience, Le Joyaux de la Princisse, Post Scriptvm, Cyclotimia, Ellende, Arecibo, Leif Elggren, Charlemagne Palestine, Cataclyst, Emerge, Beneath The Lake, Augur, Orginisation Toth, Origami Galaktika, Origami Arktika, C.M. Von Hausswolff, Ordo Equiibrio, Aperus, Cruelity Campaign, Tom Opdahl, Beequeen, Tau Ceti, Datura 1.0, Farfield, Autodidact, Eye Of Phetkanha, Alhedion, Cria Cuervos, Douglas Burkett, Ure Thrall, Diatonis, Baradelan, Asia Nova, Coma Virus, William Basinski, Stratvm Terror, Amir Baghiri, Memoria, Blacklab, Crepuscule, Eduard Artemyev, Keimverbreitung, Cymbl, Allerseelen, Dead Voices On Air, Cyber Zen Sound Engine (some), Jliat, Core, Brume, Andrew Liles, Jon Broaddus, Zbigniew Karkowski, Axon Neuron-Vagwa, Thom Brennan (some), Falling You, Paul Schutze, Ora, Monos, Mirror, Alial Straa, Michael Stearns, Austere, Casar Ursic, Avrigus, Jeff GreinkeDagda Mor, Inhale, Travismorgan, Ramon Caramba, Max Corbacho, Danny Kreutzfeldt, Polito, I Dream No More, Stephan Mathieu. There may be a few more, but I'm tired and want to go to bed. Pending your authorization, of course.

No Eric, first you must say the list again - backwards.

HAFLER TRIO

omf eric

sweet dreams

Robert Ashley "Automatic Writing"

If you want something that's fairly ambient, occasionally creepy, lushly ethereal, and thunderously apocalyptic, I might recommend the music of Elend. "The Umbersun" or "Les Ténèbres du Dehors" are both really good places to start. They have a newer album out but it has more of a darkwave orientation and is certainly less ambient- textured but more rigidly structured.

Robert Rich - especially Stalker, A Troubled Resting Place and Below Zero.
Alio Die - Le Stanze Della Trascendenza and others
Oöphoi - Mare Vaporum

The Charlemagne Palestine & Panasonic colab on Mort Aux Vaches (if you can find it).

.

I'm surprised no mentioned Ambient Isolationism on this thread. I still listen to that a bunch.

o m g

Eric Michael Place is my nu-god!

well, 2-year-old god.

the bands & albums i know from that list makes me want to check out the other stuff, but where to start argglgl%$&§!&%

Yeah, jesus. I wonder if Eric's still out there, could he give us an updated, perhaps pared down list??

I've heard maybe five things on Eric's list.

ive heard 57 (yes i counted them), but theres still TOO MUCH.

its hard to imagine a time when dark ambient (and reading the wire) was actually fashionable

Whoa way harsh dude.

check out GAS. creepy, bubbly and dark. i have it on soulseek. my user name is doom23. i have all their releases on the mille plateaux label, when they were good.

Does GAS stand for anything?

no.

the dude behind the band is wolfgang voigt, he has so many other aliases but under the name GAS he makes this really dark muted techno with beats that are soft and in the background. the overall feeling is of utter despair and bleakness.

Sounds good to me.

Pop music albums as radical as the first album of Wolfgang Voigt's project GAS are scarce. Comparable extremes coming to mind are Napalm Death's "Scum", the self-proclaimed "end of music as we know it" by virtue of being the fastest music ever released on a commercial CD, or Earth's "Earth 2" for being the slowest.

"GAS" is also excessively slow; simply put, it's drone music. In the first track, all your ear can latch on to is a few heavily down-tuned, backwards-played samples of Disco guitar. But actually it took me a backwards playback at 75 rpm to discover that. The resulting texture is so smooth, soothing, subdued, it can almost be felt as a physical presence in the room. And contrary to New Age musics that try to achieve that effect through big production and effects claptrap, "GAS" shines with a very moderate production, the worst thing about this being the frequent clicks as artifacts of sample editing, the best being that it will sound great on any system, at any volume, at any time of the day.

It's interesting to look at the development of GAS' sound. The debut EP on Profan contained four tracks that were very different from each other (more on that to come in a seperate review). The self-titled album takes up where the EP ended, with a very plastic-y and synthetic sound: track 1 is an enlengthened, reduced version of the EP's track 4; track 2 is basically track 1 with a beat added; etc... the whole album basically is a handful ideas stretched out to a whopping (actually, soothing) 77 minutes. All Later GAS albums (I followed through until 2000's "Pop") sounded very different from it, mostly deploying samples from classical music like Schoenberg and Wagner, so "GAS" remains unique and unchallenged to this day.

The album is usually put into the "ambient" drawer. I don't know... Okay, the term "ambient" itself has become pretty vague by today, but the synthetic, monotonous "GAS" is the complete opposite of the sountrack-ish and, well, ambient quality of classics like Eno's "Music For Airports". It's far more abstract (not structurally, but as in "the contrary of concrete, recognizable, image-evoking sound material") and, forgive me, musical than that. When I last read an interview with Wolfgang Voigt in 1999, he insisted that all of his music would be seen simply as pop, and as strange and radical as "GAS" may appear, Voigt's claim makes sense.

those Gas albums on MP are truly amazing. such a shame that label is out of print.

yes, indeed. i have them all on mp. i even bought the first one, the ugly looking one, used here in toronto. the stuff just stood out. the same with vladislav delay.

ENVENOMIST

tor lundvall, too.