Afraid of “Dark” ambient?

Before we begin, let’s understand the definition of Dark Ambient. Dark ambient (wiki def) is a sub-genre of ambient music that features foreboding, ominous, or discordant overtones. This music emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of new synthesizer and sampling technology in the electronic music genre and other technical advances in music. Dark ambient is an unusually diverse genre, related to industrial music, noise, ethereal wave, and black metal, yet generally free from derivatives and connections to other genres or styles. (continued below)

Dark ambient evolved partially based on several of Brian Eno’s early collaborations that had a distinctly dark or discordant edge, notably “An Index of Metals” (from Evening Star (1975), a collaboration with Robert Fripp that incorporated harsh guitar feedback, the ambient pieces on the second half of David Bowie’s Low (1977) and “Heroes”, Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics (1980), a collaboration with Jon Hassell, and particularly the fourth installment of his ambient series, On Land (1982), which had many deeply spatial elements, often utilizing field recordings to foreboding effect. An important early precursor of the genre was Tangerine Dream’s early double-album Zeit, which was unlike most of their subsequent albums in abandoning any notion of rhythm or definable melody in favor of a “darkly” sinuous, occasionally disturbing effect.

My definition of dark ambient: To some, dark ambient could be defined as dark, “creepy”, spooky, ghostly, evil, scary-ritual type ambient music. Some dark ambient are made with added experimental sounds, like “heart beats”, “creaking doors”, etc. The type of music you often hear in scary movies and some video games like Resident Evil, Fatal Frame or Silent Hill. Dark, disturbing images may come to mind. Though, just like any other style of music, dark ambient varies.

I don’t feel that all dark ambient is disturbing as many may think. Infact, I find some dark ambient quite peaceful, even meditative (at least to me). A couple of my favorite dark ambient songs are:

Ghosts Of Breslau – Scontrum II,
The Caretaker: The Haunted Ballroom,
Ctacik: Alai Duchy
Lustmord – The Outer Shadows

I would love to read your thoughts on this topic!

Advertisement