With every technological advancement, music becomes heavier.Īnd so, naturally, this led to the experimentation with an exploration of instrumental ambient music to suggest the so called dark themes of confusion, feeling lost, melancholic, haunting, horrifying or mysterious, to name a few.This is our Christmas gift to all who support us and free for everyone!Ģ015 Compiling this years "best of" proved incredibly tough with so many stellar releases out this year and many surprising newcomers to the label. Into the 1980s, synthpop is very popular and mainstream, so following Einstein's law of universal relativism, we begin to see dark branches splinter off into goth and industrial music, with both sounds and words often containing strong and slow beats, injury to the body, minor chords, haunting sound effects, machinery, heavy emotional content and response from the listener. The length of songs extended to make room for instrumental parts that sounded otherworldly, ethereal, sometimes downright haunting. In the late 1960s music took on rather a psychedelic and fantastical sound in the form of prog rock.īands like Genesis and King Crimson were experimenting with synthesizers and creating an entirely new atmospheric experience for the listener. The synthesizer opened up endless doors to new sonic possibilities, with its myriad sound effects and capacity for programming and recording. It is true that the accessibility of the synthesizer led to an ever-increasing presence of the instrument in music from the 1960s and 70s, but - as with most genres of music and art - the group or artist who invented or began the genre shall forever be argued upon. Early AmbientĪmbient music as a genre took root sometime in the 1960s, when synthesizers were becoming more affordable to the average consumer. Personally I find them to be a bit of both, as per that aforementioned liberating experience.
From guttural, deep and quiet vocals just a bit offkey, to muffled horror sounds, there are elements some find disturbing and others find calming.
But there is always sensuality in this music, for in its ghostly state it feels so very and truly alive.Īlso Read: How To Build Your Music Library As A DJĭark ambient music is about the experience of feeling while listening. One could argue it is a spiritiual experience for through endurance we grow stronger.Įndurance is another big theme in dark ambient music: the notes and beats and frequently repeated, suggesting endurance in both the repetitive, machinelike motion and pain evident in the vocals. Generally speaking, that's a very important theme to appreciate about dark music: that shared experience between creator and listener, the cause and effect of having put that emotional work into the music and then effecting the same responses in the listener. And in facing this fear through listening to the music - through bearing that exact experience - one comes out the other side feeling rather liberated, risen, freed. What Dark Ambient Is All About ?ĭark ambient is the atmosphere of a lonely nightmare, soft violence, utter fear. The kind of music that plays while you get a massage: music that calms you, relaxes the breathing and frees the mind. Ambient music is soothing, with few instruments, and sounds with large gaps in between.
There can seem to be no beginning nor an end there is not a climax. For that is what dark ambient is all about: the journey.