A Challenge of HonourAtmospheric Music, Chapter V
Capitalized For Awesome.
Capitalized For Awesome.
Atmosphere is something that is generally subjective and can manifest itself in many ways. This is the fifth installment of a journal series where I rant on, recommend and explain some albums that I found to be very atmospheric in their nature. This is NOT a journal where I talk about my favorite albums overall. To read the previous journal Click Here.
Here are a few albums from artists that I've been obsessing over recently:
17. Infidel?/Castro! - "Bioentropic Damage Fractal"
Experimental / Avant-garde / Noise / Post-Rock
Experimental? Yes, to the point of plain weird and risking an overdose. I love this album so much I'm almost willing to call it my favorite album ever even though I hate all this "my favorite genre is" or "my favorite artist is" etc. etc. No ill will towards you who namedrop your favorites but I don't find my taste to be so easily pigeonholed. Bioentropic Damage Fractal is a melting pot of mixed sounds, sometimes done with "proper instruments" sometimes just whatever. From random and chaotic electronic grind to 20 minute long post-rockish ambient noise pieces. I really like the grind tracks, they're fun, constantly changing leaving you not knowing what to think really, but it's at the long atmospheric ambient operas where it's really at considering what kind of journal this is. The contrast is enormous, from extremely distractive grind to slow soundscape music. Which might answer the question why they're so unknown, I mean, someone who's into the one polarity wouldn't instinctively like the other, but then I guess to seek out this kind of music you would have to rather open-minded in the first place. It's just hard for me to fathom that something this great has gotten so little attention, hence I make up theories as to why that might be, it's a natural reflex, makes life easier.
"Let's make a song, start it out almost silent but continuously builds up an tension which rapidly expands the whole time for ten minutes" seriously... How fucking awesome isn't that for a song concept? It's not really that generic reverb-drenched ambient which you imagine it would be either, it's a more dry and noisy sound collage thing. There are so fucking many layers of sound, properly done panning as well, with good balance and sometimes psychedelic of nature, which just enhances the way this monstrosity of sound devours you. It's a gloomy, malicious, melancholic, chaotic double-disc opus which - if something - would suit as a soundtrack for the decay of mankind.
To sum this up: Avant-Garde is for the cool kids.
18. Bohren & der Club of Gore - "Black Earth"
Doom Jazz / (Dark) Ambient
Long droning ambient tones immediately captivate me as I begin to listen. The funeral-paced drums sets the tempo of my breathing. The rhodes piano plays a dark melody for me, an emotional one. Bass tones sounding as if they had traveled from the most unfathomable depths of the abyss has begun to tremble me. The bass is later on played with a bow which creates what can only be described as a fearsome sound. The almost silent buzzy noise created by the brush fondling the snare is tingling my ears. Ah the sax... I don't know how long it's been playing for I have forgotten when it begun. It plays me a lonely tune. Which isn't necessarily grieving the absence of company. It's a tone which I can relate to. I frequently find myself to be extremely tired of, and unwilling to participate in the social play that where we all must assume our "role" to survive in today's society. Since when was "survival of the fittest" exchanged with "survival of the most fake"? I often find myself trying to isolate myself from others, however I always fail because I am a wheel in society. Therefore this tone represents to me, a sense of belonging, I have found what I was looking for. It does not make me feel ecstatic, elated, hearty or happy. Yet despite all it's melancholic glory, it does make my heart pound hard and in a way makes me feel happy.
That was a
19. ZandoZ Corp. - "Suffocating Egos"
Rhythmic Noise / IDM / Industrial
Suffocating Egos' atmosphere is very futuristic in it's nature, though it's not the corny sci-fi sound you might be imagining, it is a dark and dystopian cyberpunk atmosphere. Despite that imagining what kind of music would accompany a book or something is something so subjective, it is how I interpret it. I bet that people who are as familiar and appreciate cyberpunk-fiction as much as I do would agree. This highly unknown Brazilian combines rhythmic noise, IDM and industrial into a quite disturbing concoction. Industrial melodies and IDM ambiances with chaotic rhythms put on top, perhaps too noisy to be called IDM rhythms. The melodies usually aren't very special and kept quite simple but they're something that makes otherwise chaotic music pleasant to listen to... Well, pleasant in a subjective way :} I wouldn't exactly call this easy-listening if you understand what I mean. Anyways, what makes the melodies good is the great variety in sound with no melody sounding as the other. As well as how those are weaved together in all the layers to together create what is the mechanic sounding atmosphere of Suffocating Egos.
20. Genghis Tron - "Board Up The House"
Experimental / Electronic / Grindcore
Though admittedly it's far from my favorite Genghis Tron album. I much prefer the more direct approach of Dead Mountain Mouth. Despite that, I believe this to be their most atmospheric album hence why I chose this one. It feels pretty much like a natural successor to their older works and takes a more progressive approach than Dead Mountain Mouth which took a more progressive approach than Cloak of Love which was purely experimental. While all this progressive wankery with complicated fingerplay and chaotic transitions between rhythms and riffs is more than often frowned upon, I personally think Genghis Tron does such a good job at this, keeping it at a moderate level, that I think this just doesn't fall under the same umbrella. Allow me to further elaborate; this is GOOD while the other is BAD which leads us to the conclusion that Genghis Tron =/= Other.
Another thing issue I would like to address is metalheads problem with drum machines. They bitch and whine because it is done electronically and therefore not true and what the fuck who cares. A drum machine can first of all do ANYTHING normal drums can do, absolutely everything, including ghost tones and everything else. That is because you can sample. It can not only do ANYTHING normal drums can do it can also do it ten times better and ten times more dynamic with cutoff volumes and playback velocity etc. The list goes on, there are billions of alternatives. I play drums myself, when I want to make up a rhythm to go with the music I imagine it in my head at first and then play it, the only difference when I use a drum machine is that instead of playing it I draw it, I get the exact same beat, actually I even prefer writing drums with a drum machine because it's faster and I can plough through ideas more quickly. The only area where a drum machine is obsolete is within improvisation, but what-the-fuck would you call metal an improvisational genre? Genghis Tron uses drum machine because with the proper knowledge it just plain sounds better.
Anyways, time to get back on topic. The structure of this album is quite brilliant and you can immediately tell that it's meant as one long song rather than separate works. Some parts are more interlude-ish and some are more meant as choruses, and I don't mean choruses in their traditional sense, I mean it as something that stands out from the rest of the song which just happens to be kind of catchy. I don't even think any song has any choruses in their traditional meaning. The IDM influences are still here, thank God for that (I don't mean God as in God, rather simply as an expression), though not as obvious and frequent as in Dead Mountain Mouth. But at least they don't make the same kind of album over and over again which would just be embarrassing, though that being said this is still very similar to it's predecessor. The slight noise influence seems to have been even further toned down to the point of disappearing completely. Some parts of the album is ambient, but never completely, rather it is often kept in the background which gives the soundscape an obscure feeling with their more recurring and "convenient" synth with heavy and harsh on top. Something that I find myself enjoying is the more on this in comparison to the previous album is the more frequent journeys into clean-oriented singing which are just breathtakingly beautiful, or perhaps that is the wrong word as they can be quite upsetting at times as well, in contrast to the harsh screaming to heavy music it sends shivers down my spine. The melodies send shivers down my spine, especially those of the more interlude oriented songs. This album sends shivers down my spine.
Thank you for reading, if you did. For further reading check out (though the early ones are kinda suckeeeh (not the albums, just my writing about them)):
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Le Conacionz
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