What is the darkest/hardest music you like?

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.

Hecker (florian, not tim)

Haha, I was about to say!

http://www.epsilonminus.com/darquedungeon/dd_7.gif

posted this on the noize board the other day. still can't get over this record:

listening to this nonesuch album for organ from 1971 and HOLY TOLEDO BLEW MY MIND. never heard it before.

new music for organ
william bolcom - black host
william albright - organbook II

william albright, organ

sydney hodkinson, percussion

SERIOUSLY SATANIC NOISE ORGAN ALBUM.

wow, so great. and seriously scary!

Yikes. That Jonestown recording is a stunning document (and is at archive.org). It an end-of-the-world gospel revival, with all the celebratory mood inverted.

creepy organ on Black Host (which alternates from fear and dread to near silence) suddenly EXPLODES into pure noise of organ, drumming, and awesome tape loop action. just unbelievable.

opeth, probably

Darkest: Diamanda Galas/Throbbing Gristle/Antony & the Johnsons/Khanate/Univers Zero
Hardest: Marduk/Rebaelliun/Immolation/Slayer/Eyehategod/Sissy Spacek

Whenever asked about dark music in my collection I always think of Massive Attack's Mezzanine I don't know why I think of it as a dark album. Something about it reminds me of tar. Also I recall Golden Palominos 'Dead inside' and Recoil's 'Liquid' have some dark lyrics courtesy of Nicole Blackman but I haven't listened to them in years. Musically speaking they're not very attractive.

Hardest and favorite that I have in my collection are probably:

Paul Dolden - L'ivresse de la vitesse
Li Jianhong - 三生石
Rashied Ali & Le Roy Jenkins Duo - Swift Are the Winds of Life
John Coltrane - Ascension

xpost - Scott, where can I hear that? I have some Olivier Messiaen but Black Host sounds amazing from your description.

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.