I just released my fifth dark ambient album under my Reality Scruncher music project: Ennui And Terror In The Void. It's a dark ambient / space ambient album that sees a return to the horrors of deepest space. The album is also set in a suitably bleak future, which is par for the course with me lol.
If you like your dark ambient droning, minimalistic and sinister, you can check it out on Bandcamp. You can also currently pick up free Bandcamp codes for my album on GetMusic.com.
The interactions
between our memories and what our senses actually experienced is
something that seems core to so much of our human existence.
Ucholak’s dark ambient album Traveller's Tales toys with
this concept by mingling technology, biology and the human yearning
for exploration.
Traveller's Tales’
description frames the album as being set in the distant future, a
time when humanity has been exploring what the universe holds, far
beyond our own home galaxy. One of the key ways that information was
gathered during this period was the use of neurotechnology to record
what the early explorers witnessed and experienced. Some of these
recordings became corrupted by the retrieval process, or by other
means, with the resulting glitches mingling what the astronauts’
senses revealed with the darker workings of their own minds. The
incomplete reports were dubbed Traveller's Tales, hence the very cool
concept behind this album.
Part I opens with a
sustained drone and a slightly fuzzy melody that roams from ear to
ear. Ominous slow swells rise beneath, impact-like sounds heard
through the mixture. After this opening soundscape, things become
quieter, descending into a kind of “sad jazzy” feeling space,
with whistling tones and scratchy microphone texture pops. A little
later, the sound of a distorted radio voice emerges, with beeps and
echoes making the space feel lonely. There are strange metallic
chiming notes, an ear pulsing beat amidst a muffled clattering
cacophony, and nymph-like calls in the air. Near its end, I thought
the elements of the track conspired to hint at a kind of mocking
laughter. Maybe the hapless astronaut featured in this recording
crash-landed onto a featureless moon and lost him or herself to their
own inner-critic as the voices on the radio faded to silence.
As desolate as Part I
felt, Part II felt like a trip to a lovely paradise planet. There is
a warm drone, the sound of waves, and strange bird-like tones that
chirrup amidst metallic chiming notes. An element of discord enters
by way of a distant drone that buzzes past, a speaker blaring
unintelligible but somehow soothing words as it floats over. The
words pulse and echo away. The soundscape changes into a deepening,
fuzzy, bass-filled place, maybe signifying the coming of night. What
sounds like a spaceship drive spinning up and taking off looms into
awareness, and after this, things turn a little more twisted. My own
impressions were decidedly insectoid, with electronic warbles and
sweeps meeting mandible-like clicks and scrapings. Egg shell crackles
and strange voices on the wind hint at an unpleasant experience for
the astronaut. For me, this track depicted what someone accidentally
being left behind on a hostile planet might experience.
If Part II was
paradisical, Part III felt like some kind of trippy descent into
Hell. It opens with a scale-sliding wah-wah type tone, with knocks
and impacts echoing away into a vast space. There are beeps and the
hint of a radio voice, and then things deepen into a quieter,
brooding, droning environment. This new location feels bestial and
chiming, with a kind of bouncing, scuffling quality. At this point,
what came to mind was a spaceship entering an evil kind of
hyperspace, much like the warp in Warhammer 40K. It isn’t all heavy
and dark however, there are gossamer tones and what at one point
seemed to be the space equivalent of sirens luring sailors to their
doom. Maybe the astronaut in this traveller's tale was asleep in a
cryogenic chamber while their ship travelled through something that
triggered nightmares. Or maybe they really were in a nightmare and
the sounds in this track are their mind trying to piece their reality
together again.
The final track, Part
IV, is a more beepy, beaty affair, with the space between memories
and reality seeming its thinnest in the whole album. After the
beat-laden, ear roaming radio voice opening, a xylophone-like melody
begins with the sound of a ticking clock behind it. When I heard
this, I wondered if an astronaut was remembering something from
childhood, maybe lulled by the mechanical rumbles of the spacecraft,
or whatever was being experienced. The melody suggested childhood to
me anyway, but it could equally have been from a sad fun faire. The
soundscape turns more crumpy and guttural after this, with whistling
cries and agitated impacts and electronic flares. It seems like a
scratchy, flapping space, and I can only guess what the astronaut is
experiencing to bring about the sounds of this recording.
Traveller's Tales
is a dark ambient album built around a concept that I really love. I
find the whole idea of corrupted neural implant recordings from far
future astronauts, decoded by scientists in the even further future,
a fun thing to ponder. The tracks of the album all suggest different
events befalling the hapless space travellers, and each track serves
up a diverse mixture of textures and impressions. If I had to choose
my favourite track, it would be Part II, as the way a paradise seems
to turn into a fearful place holds the biggest emotional sway for me.
If you enjoy your dark ambient with a futuristic sci-fi flavour, I
think you’d enjoy Traveller's Tales.
Almost one month ago, I collected some of my own dark ambient tracks together into an album and released it on Bandcamp. It's called Deep Space Impingement and I've decided to give myself the artist name of Reality Scruncher. The album is themed around a deep space starship and its descent into weirdness and madness. The full album description is:
A starship journeys far beyond the known, delving into strange twisted distortions of the reality that birthed it.
Presences watch it. Probe it. Toy with it. The starship can take it. The crew... not so much.
A droning, rumbling, space-infused album, one created in the hopes of transporting the listener into vast, futile, and malignant soundscapes.
The full album is also up on YouTube and I`ll embed it below if you'd like to check it out that way. If you listen and find yourself liking it, it's currently a free download on Bandcamp. I will also paste some Bandcamp codes at the end of this post if you'd like to add it to your library in a more permanent way.
Whether you believe in
some all supreme being or not, the universe is already an awe
inspiring place, with vast distances to which we can put numbers but
can barely visualize, to energy and crushing forces that create and
destroy beyond anything that us humans can experience. I’ve always
appreciated dark ambient / space ambient that manages to impart some
small element of this immensity, and Orphiká’s Dionysius
Supernova is the most recent that has crossed my mental space.
The album description
describes Dionysius Supernova as conceiving “the cosmic
forces of the Universe as a Dionysian blast as well as a context of
an inner travel into the Sun,” so you can make of that what you
will. As is often the case, my mind took things in its own direction,
but the sounds themselves do fit the theme of vast energies being
expended or experienced. The sounds are big, and vary in texture,
from fizzing, sometimes screechy energy bursts, to deep, smooth
down-swells, like a giant finger pushing down on reality. They also
felt to me, like a knife-edge type sensation, the balance between
creation and destruction being decided by the thinnest of borders.
Opening track Universe
Metanoia is a fine introduction to the album, the audio equivalent of
a beautiful sunrise, yet one in which you feel like you are merely
inches from the star itself. The sustained tones and drone are joined
by higher notes that sweep and flow and judder, always reminding you
that no matter how much light is before you, there is unending
darkness behind. The soundscape feels immense, energetic and
worshipful, cresting in shimmery waves. It feels like a variety of
forces, both physical and metaphysical, are converging for your own
enjoyment.
If the first track felt
like “light”, the second track, Dionysius Supernova, felt like a
heavy encounter between light and dark. It begins with deep, slow
tones and a drone, soon joined by fizzing bursts of buzzing energy. A
higher tone crests and climbs, but it seems like it’s struggling to
break through, maybe due to distance. The fizzing discharges and
pulses, and a higher piping tone joins. Things escalate as the
midpoint approaches, and the track edges closer to a noise-based
experience. Things distort and crackle at their limits. The high
tones almost become uncomfortable and the fizzing discharges continue
to boom in the low end. This track felt like one of struggle and
strain, but also of majesty, and things being just as they need to
be.
Blackened Stars is
probably my favourite track though, and I think it is in the way that
it presents the cold, deathly aspect of darkness. It opens with
flares of static and a low, distant tone that seems to menace as it
roams nearer and shrinks further. After listening to the first two
tracks and feeling pleasantly drowsy, my mind took the sounds of this
track and had me thinking about some kind of gigantic fortress
floating in space, a strange purple light occasionally revealing
strange markings on its walls. I might possibly have been reading too
much Warhammer 40K. This construction sat in black space with no
other stars, just the light that it emitted as it throbbed its way
across the endless expanse. There are higher sustained tones, almost
alarm-like, which further reinforced my sense of foreboding. I really
liked this track!
Dionysius Supernova
is, for me, an album that stays just the right side of “harsh”.
It’s noisy and droning enough to fill my ears and mind with tones
that give me a break from the perpetual anxiety and depression cycle
that seems to live there. I’ve only described the first three
tracks; there are eight in total, and they are all excellent. If you
want to float on a comfy bed of droning galactic-noise, to have your
mind blasted (in a nice way) by distortions and rumbles and climbing
tones, you should check out Dionysius Supernova.
Visit the Dionysius Supernova page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also
check out the track Constant Horizons below:
Two of my most common
internet searches are “dark ambient” and “alien”. Sleep
Research Facility’s dark ambient album Nostromo has blipped
on my motion tracker any number of times, but it’s only recently
that I actually got around to checking it out. If you asked me why
it’s taken me so long, I honestly have no idea. The album initially
released in 2001 and was later remastered in 2007, complete with an
extra bonus track. It is the 2007 version that I am taking a look at
here.
Nostromo is an
album inspired by the first eight minutes of the film Alien,
the description setting the various tracks up as a journey through
the decks of the ill-fated vessel. One of the things that I really
enjoy about the Alien series of films is the harsh bleakness
of the universe, a feeling boosted by the unnerving score, the
industrial visuals and of course the unbridled hostility of the
Xenomorph. It feels sharpest in the original trilogy but I still
think it’s there in the latest offerings, to some degree. What I
hoped for from Nostromo, was a series of tracks that tapped
into this “bleakness”, hopefully by way of evoking some of the
sounds and moods of Alien. It didn’t disappoint.
The album opens with
A-Deck, a track that is based around a pulsing rumbling throbbing
bass sound that feels like it’s rolling along narrow metal
corridors and poking its way through the darkness. A growing, rougher
tone and an airy shushing shimmer meld with it soon after, distant
muted impacts creating the impression of vast machinery working. It’s
toward the end of A-Deck and into B-Deck that one of my favourite
sounds appears however.
By the time B-Deck
arrives, the listener is listening to tinny, twisting electronic
echoes, crispy static, and my aforementioned favourite sound, an
understated echoing clicking. This clicking puts me firmly in mind of
the small clicks of a motion tracker when it isn’t detecting any
movement, just the quiet tick-tick-tick to show that it’s actually
working. Other sounds swirl around this, with pulsing bass flowing
and ebbing at intervals too. Again, another track that had me feeling
like I was roaming a space vessel that is in hibernation mode, the
barest glimmer of status lights all that shines from any reflective
surfaces nearby.
C-Deck is a
static-filled, quietly beeping track, one that shimmers and feels a
little lighter. Maybe this is the deck where the life-support lives.
At the least, the tones at times seemed a little like a mellow “ahh”
tone to me, lending this track a more peaceful, though still dark
quality. D-Deck starts with fast pulsing bass that is soon joined by
quiet static, vibrating deep tones and flurries of subtle beeps. This
feels more “engine roomy” than anything, the rotating whirring
that comes later maybe even hinting at ventilation fans. It’s a
very lulling track.
E-Deck sees us back in
the static again, static that is soon punctuated by somehow sonorous
chiming bass tones. It feels meditative, but even the static starts
to pulse and react to the bass reverberations. There is also a high
whining tone sitting comfortably behind things, one that again, seems
to take on the general pulsing quality of the track. Narcissus is a
bonus track that didn’t appear on the original album released in
2001, and it’s a great one to finish the album with. It’s a
higher pitched, buzzing track, with sounds that fizz and roam from
ear to ear. There is a light resonance to it, and a growing pulsing
building agitation to the roaming tones. It feels like sanctuary,
stress and hope. It deepens as it passes the midpoint, and slowly
simmers with slow, possibly cryo-sleep breathing-like sounds as it
plays out.
Nostromo is a
lovingly dark yet peaceful tour of one of sci-fi and horror’s most
well-known spaceships. It’s an album that serves up two things,
depending on the listener. If you have never watched Alien, it
gives you a deep, rumbling slice of space ambient to chill out to.
If, however, you have foreknowledge of what befalls the Nostromo, the
whole thing seems to have a calm before the storm feeling, or maybe,
the sensation of the future haunting the past. However it might be
described, I’ve listened to it every day for a week and I intend to
listen again today.
Visit the Nostromo
page on Bandcamp for more information.
Creation of a Star
is a dark space ambient album from Planet Supreme, his first release
on the Cryo Chamber label. The album and artist names both embody a
very apt sense of vastness, as this is also aligned with the feelings
evoked by the music itself. Warm sci-fi tones, sweeps, and drones,
create impressions of large expanses, gigantic mega-structures, and
technology sculpting the worlds it reaches.
An example of said
technology and vast feelings is described well by one of my favourite
tracks: Scanners. The track opens with the impression of a big,
rotating thing, one perforated by the squeals and flares of
electronic signals. Things settle into a gently droning space, deeper
swells of tone nestling into a machine-like hum. For me, this track
brought to mind a space-based vista, maybe a planet looking out on an
asteroid belt being mined by gigantic refineries. It’s a little
melancholy with the distance it contains, and the latter part of the
track seems to have low tones that put me in mind of an old man
grumbling. Maybe he’s a miner who lost his job to the bright, new,
automated future.
Speaking of robots and
automation, another track that stood out for me was Machina, a track
that seemed rife with android-based gurgles and growls. A faint
shimmer joins them, and a gentle throb that shoots into the distance
at times. High tones sit above a low vibrating buzzing, with steadily
climbing electronic tones offsetting the shimmer. There is an ah-like
feeling around the midpoint of the track, a gentle state of affairs
agitated by an irritated tone, and a whooshing, pulsing soundscape.
This could be the junk yard where the obsolete models of robot end
their “lives”, even our successors getting to experience the pain
of being surpassed.
Genetic Cargo is
another track that served up some pleasing imagery, something that I
noted down as “egg-shell ambience”. It opens with a low drone and
dripping, rain-like crackling echoes. Small electronic warbles and
tones judder, with longer, deeper tones soon joining. A warm tone
takes up residence in the soundscape, a low rhythm and synth notes
coming along for the ride. This track felt like it depicted some kind
of wet, moist, likely smelly, cargo hold, one with who knows what
living in the containers in the shadows. The crackles of this track,
and the two tracks that follow, put me a little in mind of the ways
that artists Mount Shrine and Proto U sometimes treat rain or wind
field-recordings too, so if you enjoy either of those musicians, you
should take a closer listen.
Creation of a Star
is a chilled, yet warm slice of space ambience. It’s the kind of
album that’s an ideal accompaniment for relaxation, as there is
little here that jars or agitates the mind. My mind at least. If you
are looking out for some space-based sci-fi ambience, you should head
over to the Bandcamp page below to check it out.
Visit the Creation of a Star page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also
check out the track Scanners below:
Artificial intelligence
is a ripe topic for speculation, the questions of if, when, how and
what will happen when it arrives, happily consuming the minds of both
scientists and creatives alike. Nyctalllz’s Syfynetiks is a
dark ambient space album that provides the soundtrack for what might
happen if our own eventual AI made contact with the AI of an alien
civilization, without our knowing it. It’s an interesting question.
I mean, how would your phone or computer describe you and your
characteristics to an alien race? Would you even get mentioned at
all? Food for thought.
Syfynetiks
contains three tracks, each of which feature a host of sci-fi
electronic tones, beeps and drones. It feels like catching hints of
voice through radio static while equipment throbs and pulses around
you. It feels crisp and indifferent to the eavesdropper, but also
rumbling, like the gates of hell might be opening up and there's
nothing you can do about it.
The first track is
Spacetime’s Crack and it embodies the feeling that I mentioned
above. The rumbling opening is buffeted by soaring electronic beeps
and sparkles. A rasping distortion rises and falls, like a demon
gargling radio-waves, soon to be joined by a strange voice that seems
to speak in a stilted, simulated way. This track feels jagged and
droning, and is infested with radio swirls and squeals. There are
hints of a feminine “ahh-vocal” around the midpoint, making me
wonder if I was listening to the two AI’s beginning some kind of
virtual fling. I hope that no one is being catfished...
Next up is Spirals of
Time. This short track opens with a low buzz, one that sits in a
space that feels windy and hollow, but in a simulated, digital kind
of way. There is the sound of something spinning up and down, and a
low drone. The soundscape feels like it’s boiling and gritty, and
that it’s populated by a roaming, warping, electronic harmony. As
the track continues, it feels more and more like it has a kind of
inhaling and exhaling quality, and feels like it’s fizzing in the
air. A strange, rumbling space.
The final track is
Parallel Observers. This is a track of chiming tones and rustling
static, one with a distorted, digitized impression of nature. It
feels almost like being outside, but not. There’s a persistent
jackdaw-like chittering in the distance and a low tone that bends and
twists upwards. After a short time, a warbly, robot-like voice or
tone begins, “dripping” echoes pinging off into some murky
distance. This is another track that also feels like it fizzes and
pulses. The chimes and echoes create a relaxing yet ominous space,
and created a kind of “meditating on the Event Horizon” effect,
for me at least.
Syfynetiks is a
dark ambient album for lovers of space horror, bleak sci-fi themes,
and the alien, magical feel of advanced technology. The three tracks
on the EP all give the listener some fascinating spaces to explore,
or to witness, and while you might feel quite alone in doing so, the
idea that there are two AI’s conversing around you kind of means
that alone is the one thing that you are not. Whether you matter, or
are even noticed though... that is another question.
Visit the Syfynetiks
page on Bandcamp for more information.
Back to Beyond
is a dark, space ambient album from Alphaxone and ProtoU, and is the
follow up to their 2017 album Stardust. The album description
tells tale of a long journey into the vastness of space, mysterious
black-hole-emitted golden dust causing the protagonist some
consternation. There is also the issue of the protagonist’s cat
performing zero-G acrobatics as it tries to feed.
Quantum Zero is one of
the tracks that I enjoyed the most. It begins with small ticks or
clicks, a sound that put me in mind of hot metal that is slowly
cooling. There is a whining noise and the muffled feel of static, and
then, a tone a little like a distant train whistle. An airy drone
rumbles through the soundscape, the clicks beginning to echo into a
larger space. There is a pulsing tone and a little later, deeper
vibrations. Towards the end of the track, beeps and radio frequency
sweeps can be heard, and what sounds like paper being scuffed. For
me, Quantum Zero felt like it described a vast reactor or engine
room, one that has recently fallen silent and is in the process of
simmering down.
Dreams of Solace is
another track that stood out for me. It opens with chuffing air
movements and an “air blowing down a ribbed plastic tube”
vibration. A rushing sound roams the soundscape, and what might be
doors hissing open and closed. Electronic warbles and a long sweeping
tone manifest, small trills and whistles in the distance joining
them. Towards the end of the track, the sounds of movement through a
metal vent seem to be heard. I felt like this track was the best
match for the cover art of the album above, the pipes etc. It also,
for some reason, brought to mind a scene in the film Brazil,
where Robert De Niro turns up and messes with the pipes and tubing in
the wall.
Finally, The Edge of
Perception is a track that I enjoyed because it felt “watery” to
me. That’s not to say literally water-filled, but there are
elements to the audio that seemed to impose a distortion to things, a
little like how water muffles and warps sound. It starts with a low,
airy drone, a distant dripping, and a closer echoing knocking joins
things. There is a low, voice-like call or groan, and a deeper
rumbling fuzz. There is also a persistent high “ahh” vocal that
sits uneasily above things. This is an echoing, flowing track with
swells and the sounds of impacts in long corridors. For all of that,
it is a warm track, the flowing melodies that come in near the
midpoint setting a lovely contrast with the rasping hisses and
echoes. Maybe this track is the sci-fi equivalent of a lonely alien
minotaur at the heart of a labyrinth made out of cold metal.
Back to Beyond
was, for me, the soundtrack to being on a long space journey. Many of
the tracks feature metallic vibrations, muted clicks and beeps, and
the hisses of atmosphere escaping from pressurised containment. For
the most part, it seemed an album of smooth tones, small sounds and
mechanical objects buzzing into the void. The darkness it displays is
tempered by the warmth it also contains. It’s a bit like the
difference between seeing zombies on your lawn in the light of the
full moon, compared to seeing them in golden sunlight, while dew is
still dangling from spiderwebs and birds are chirping their morning
chorus. Both scenes could be horrifying, but the second has its own
beauty.
Visit the Back to Beyond page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the track Quantum Zero below:
Dark Ambient Review:
Behind the Veil of Black Stars
Review By Casey
Douglass
Album cover
In my recent interview
with Scott Lawlor, we touched on the topic of ambientonline.org’s
One Sample Dare Challenges, contests in which the composers must use
only one sample to create their musical piece. Scott recently
released Behind the Veil of Black Stars, a slice of dark space
ambient that was created for one of these challenges. The album
consists of three, twenty to thirty minute tracks, each of which
conjures up the bleak indifference of space in its own way. My
favourite track is No Place To Land, and one of the main notes I
wrote about it was “Recipe for agitation?” You'll see why.
No Place To Land begins
with a low, gradual sound, a little like wind blowing along a plastic
tunnel. It winds upwards and begins to rasp with a sharpness to its
edge not long after. A shrill sound emerges, which to me, seemed like
a flock of jackdaws settling for the night. The track starts to feel
as if it has a mechanical underpinning not long after this, which I
think is confirmed by the siren-like sound that comes after.
The siren tone arrives
at about the three minute mark, and it feels like it agitates the
soundscape. It also cements the impression that the rest of the track
gave me, which was of a spaceship trying to land on a barren planet,
but each time that it gets near to the ground, it spies some reason
as to why it shouldn’t land. The track lifts and falls, rises and
descends, over and over. You feel like you can hear engines winding
down and surging upwards with each failed attempt, and that very much
sets the scene for the remainder of the track.
I liked the uneasiness
that No Place To Land seemed to bring about in my mind. It wasn’t
too harsh or uncomfortable, but as someone who knows how his brain
feels when his OCD has tripped him up with rumination and anxiety, No
Place To Land approximates this unsettled feeling, but in a much more
mellow way. It’s like a dark, space-based Groundhog Day,
but with subtle changes as it plays out.
There
is much to enjoy in the other tracks too. Behind The Veil of Stars is
a track that seems to shimmer and boil with static, drone and an
ominous feeling of vast depth and distance. Unquiet Spirits Wandering
a Dying Planet flicks bubbling tones and electronic warbles from ear
to ear in the first half, yet settles into a deeper, “plane flying
over your head” droning space for the second half, which I must
admit I preferred. They are both great tracks.
It’s
amazing to think that Behind the Veil of Black Stars
was made with only one sample at its core, and yet Scott has twisted
and manipulated it into a dark sci-fi creation, one that thrums with
the cold of space and the threat of an indifferent universe.
Space certainly seems
to be a great fit as the inspiration for music that loves to drone,
the vast distances and cold danger just the kind of setting for
sounds that seem to continue on and on. Drone Islands – Stellar
is a collection of tracks inspired by astronomical events, and
features a variety of dark ambient artists.
I think that my
favourite track is Planetary Chain from Grey Frequency. It opens with
a mid-level drone, one that has a vibrating edge. A siren-like drone
rises behind it, the whoosh of what might be a rocket engine too, but
the vibrating edge is what set the scene for me. I couldn’t help
but think about how spare change rattles on a car dashboard. With the
space setting of this album, I had visions of a spacecraft
manoeuvring in the inky blackness of space, one of the pilot’s
keepsakes buzzing on top of the control station. After the midpoint,
wave-like sounds rustle against the ears, piano notes joining them a
littler later. This led me to wonder if the ship is headed down some
kind of galactic plug-hole.
PLUHM’s Sospensione
is another track that I enjoyed, although in the beginning, I wasn’t
so sure. It starts with a high, organ-like tone that crackles and
breaks. A low drone sounds beneath as the notes echo away, small
crackles popping as they distort. A buzzing begins, and when it ends,
the soundscape has changed to a different space, one with an
electronic heart-beat tone, plucked notes, and with a soaring drone
behind. This buzzing occurs again, and once again the soundscape
changes. It feels like whatever is going on is evolving, maybe like
the stages a star goes through in its life time, or on a smaller
scale, the journey an astronaut might make into the stars. By the end
of the track, I had warmed to it a great deal, it’s a fascinating
listen.
Astral Bridge Severance
from Infinexhuma is the opening track of the album, and another one
that stood out for me. It begins with a vibrating and echoing
soundscape, metallic knocking sounds seeming to stir the space, a low
hiss roaming, a distant shimmer beckoning. This track felt like the
film Event Horizon to me, a drifting spaceship about which no
one knows where it’s been or why it has appeared now. It’s
sinister. The soundscape becomes a bit more cacophonous as it
continues, a feeling of energy building up or maybe an engine flaring
into life. There are rasping drones, female vocals, and an effect
that seems like a bestial roar. This soundscape, for me, was one of
threat, collapse and unknown forces. I like those things a great
deal.
Drone Islands –
Stellar is a varied collection of dark ambient space and drone
scapes. I tended to enjoy the darker, deeper tracks more than some of
the higher pitched creations, but all of the tracks have their own
charm. If you like your dark ambient cosmological and droning, you
should check out Drone Islands – Stellar.
Almost every time that I see a bit of “space news”, it fills my
head with vast distances, fiery stars and the crushing majesty of the
universe. I enjoy dark space ambient albums for that same reason, as
they have the ability to transport my mind to somewhere that I’ve
never been, and never will. Aftermath released in 2018, and is
a collaborative album from dark ambient artists Alphaxone and Xerxes
the Dark. It’s an album set up to trigger that “wonder gland”
in your mind, particularly if you get turned on by strange planets
and the prospect of alien life.
The album description tells tale of an ancient stone tablet that sent
you to an alien world. Once there, you find a strange black monolith,
the kind of monolith that emits all kinds of strange energies and
transmissions that mess with your equipment. That’s right, the best
kind of monolith. The track titles frame each soundscape as relating
to certain parts of the story, from the discovery of an Ancient
Amulet, to Deep Space Signals and onwards to The Planet and beyond.
Unveiling The Script is one of my favourite tracks. It opens with a
pulsing hollow drone and a rising insect-like sound that changes to a
more sweeping shimmer. Chittering echoes judder into life, a deep
drone rumbling beneath them. There is a hiss, which just might be the
sound of pressurised air being used to blow way dust that hides
ancient writing. An “ahh-like” vocal aspect seems to suggest
itself, a fuzzy beeping/pinging tone shortly on its heels. This track
really brought to mind the idea of examining something ancient,
something not seen by human eyes for millennia, and the mystical feel
to it really shines through.
Activating is another track that I really enjoyed. It begins in a
dark, echoing way, distant impacts seeming to resound and pulse from
ear-to-ear. A low swell of a windy drone comes and goes, an “Om
chant” effect seeming to settle in the soundscape. There is a
metallic feel to the echoes here, the high whistling tone that
emerges setting the scene for some kind of energetic process about to
begin. I’m not entirely sure what is activating, but it sounds
suitably ominous.
The Planet is also a fine track, one that sees the exploration party
set eyes on a new world. It kicks off with what sounds like the
muffled air-crack of thunder. Alongside this is a resonant drone and a
pulsing hum that seems to press at the sides of your mind. A distant
metallic clattering and an “airy whistle” join the fun, with
bird-like chirps and calls insinuating themselves not long after.
This is a shimmery track, one that hints of discovery and vast
distances. I can only imagine what it might be like to land on a
strange new world. I wouldn’t be surprised if it sounded a bit like
this.
Aftermath is a dark space ambient album that embodies the
thrill of exploration, but does so in a smooth, gentle way. Many of
the soundscapes are whistling, droning affairs, the high shimmer
seeming to blend into the galactic background of a universe that is
so much bigger and stranger than we will likely ever realise.
Aftermath takes the listener on a relaxing journey into the
stars, and it does it very well indeed.
Visit the Aftermath page on Bandcamp for more information. You
can also checkout one of the tracks, Unveiling the Script below:
I was given access
to a review copy of this album.
A few weeks ago, I
reviewed Anihila’s most recent dark space ambient release:
Kosmobushir. It certainly wet my appetite for more of Duncan's
bleak space soundscapes, and he was kind enough to give me review
access to his first Anihila release: Silent Annihilation.
Whereas Kosmobushir was themed around a lost Soviet spaceship
near Triton, Silent Annihilation is about the crew of a
space-station orbiting a strange, time-bending planet.
Silent Annihilation
is an album that taps into that desolate sci-fi feeling of
strangeness, the one you get when you watch a really disconcerting
film set in the stars. The kind of film I’m talking about is not
only one in which nobody can hear you scream, but that also aren’t
there to see your insides make a break for the outside, as a sinister
throbbing star indifferently sweeps your body with radiation. That
being said, some of the tracks also hinted to me, that other
presences might be nearby, and with the time-warping factors of the
theme, they might even be past or future echoes of the hapless space
travellers.
The opening track is a
fine example of the notion of presences. A hissing static is pierced
by high tones. Metal screeches, and a sound that might just be
breathing insinuates itself into the soundscape. There are electronic
tones and whines, and distant clattering. This track made me think of
a space-station in trouble, red light bathing its innards, cold space
staring in through the windows, shadows shifting at the edge of
vision. You know the kind of shadows that red emergency lighting can
cast? They seem to take on a redness of their own. Here, maybe
they’re even watching you.
I always think that
there is something infinitely relaxing about shuddering, creaking
metal on a space ambient album. I’m sure I’d shit bricks if I was
really on a space-station or a ship making that kind of sound, but
from the comfort of my own bed, it’s heavenly. Eusebes is a track
that I thoroughly enjoyed, particularly for its use of these metallic
sounds. What Eusebes throws into the mix however, is the kind of
sound that you might hear when one spaceship docks with another, a
kind of vigorous thump that goes way beyond straining superstructure.
I felt that this was an introspective track, but one that creates the
feeling of something coming. A bit like being alone in your house and
thinking you hear a door opening downstairs, but on a space-station,
with ships and time-warps. Maybe it’s you coming home forty nine
days from now. Maybe it’s an alien wanting to suck your brain. The
soundscape builds into a throbbing, pressurized space, knocking
sounds and ghostly howls making you feel that, even if something has
got in, it’s too late to do anything anyway.
Locus Meropis is
another track that makes great use of creaking metal. This time, it
felt to me as if the whole station was having its orbit adjusted. I
thought that I heard the sounds of jiggling crockery and engines
rumbling. There is also a sound that seemed like a large creature
snoring. Maybe the station is having to take evasive action to avoid
a space leviathan? Who knows! There are impacts on the hull,
fairy-like tones, and a drone that smears a feeling of strangeness
onto things. I doubt that the station is simply avoiding an asteroid,
let me put it that way. Maybe it’s avoiding a future or past
version of itself? Could be...
The final track is when
my mind finally turned to the planet itself. Another Cold Night Alone
is a mellow track, beginning with echoing string-notes that undulate
away into the distance. There is a high tone that might be a distant
howl or cry, and a rumbling that begins about a third of the way in.
The elements of this track suggested a lone person sitting on a lush,
alien world, its gravity spiking as another massive planet rises on
the horizon, casting a spectacular shadow as it causes night to fall.
What felt relatively tranquil is changed by the rumbling. The latter
half of the track feels a lot more ominous and throbs with a sense of
foreboding. Maybe the listener escaped the space-station and found
somewhere that looked safe and beautiful, only to find that at night,
the things with teeth come out.
For me, Silent
Annihilation was the story of someone escaping a space-station
that was in trouble, and possibly finding themselves in a different
kind of danger as a consequence. I loved the relaxing metallic
rumblings and creakings, and I loved the dose of unreality or
uncanniness that seemed to go hand in hand with them. Think Event
Horizon meets Interstellar maybe, with a chunk of Solaris,
if you want my film reference-based description of how Silent
Annihilation made me feel. If
you like your dark space ambient ominous and twisted, check out
Silent Annihilation.
Visit the Silent Annihilationpage
on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out Eusebes below:
If I could, I’d love
to visit some of the dark, sci-fi universes seen in fiction. There is
something soothing about bleak distance, from the comfort of your own
armchair anyway. As I can’t go into space, dark ambient albums like
Kosmobushir are the audio vehicle to carry my imagination
there, and I’m so glad that they exist. Kosmobushir is a
dark space ambient album from Anihila, which in turn, comes from the
mind of Flowers for Bodysnatchers’ Duncan Ritchie.
The album description
paints the picture of the Soviet Union beating the U.S in the space
race, and by the year 2158, being the power exploring the fringes of
the solar system. Many Soviet citizens live out on the various
planets and their satellites, with others pushing further out all of
the time. One such ship, Akademgorodok, went missing near Neptune,
and 14 years later, a strange transmission is received hinting at
what it might have found.
Kosmobushir
includes a lot of the things I hope for with a dark space ambient
album. I want to feel like I’m on a spaceship, drifting in the
darkness, hearing the metal creak and groan, seeing strange sights,
and feeling like I’m somehow alone, but not alone. I found all of
this on Kosmobushir, a prime example being the track Further
Aft. Dripping echoes along metal corridors, a fuzz or static seems to
permeate the air, and a strange yowling sound gives everything a
creepy tint. This track is full of straining metal and cascading
rumbles, making me feel like I was exploring a doomed spaceship, but
one with a story to tell.
Alongside the metallic
groaning and shuddering, Kosmobushir also makes great use of
the whine and sweep of radio signals. The very first track, Neptune,
opens with a “shrill, whistle-like scanning sound” (from my
notes), with other sounds around it seeming to take on the aspect of
half alarm siren, half swarm. The knocking and deep vibrations that
come later really created the mental picture of approaching Neptune
on a space ship that has to fight against itself to slow down,
possibly because its sensors have just seen something very strange
out there.
I think the most
captivating track for me was the final one, Far Beyond The Reach. It
makes great use of changes in direction, the soundscape morphing at
different stages. I can only say that it made me wonder if this was
what it might sound like to enter a black hole and to return again:
the feeling of death and doom as the ship sinks in, finding yourself
in a strange place that seems at odds with what you expected, and
then being spat out somewhere else, back in our universe. Maybe I’ve
watched Interstellar too many times. No, I don’t think
that’s possible.
Kosmobushir is a
fun journey into the bleak mystery of a doomed spaceship. If you find
the idea of being in space riveting, even with all of the peril and
strangeness that it might entail, this album might be a great one for
you. Not only does it give you ominous creaking and hissing
soundscapes to relax to, but it also frames them with an alternative
history-fuelled future, and a conundrum, to boot!
Visit the Kosmobushirpage
on Bandcamp for more information.
Saturn is a sexy
planet, there’s just no getting away from it. Spirits of Rhea
is a dark ambient album from Phelios, and its theme is pretty much
all things Saturn, from its rings to its moons, and the planet
itself. In a loving nod to reality, the album even incorporates radio
emissions from the NASA CASSINI mission that visited Saturn. This
lends it that extra enjoyment factor, in my opinion, just like how a
Hollywood film that featured a real alien might.
As a whole, the tracks
on Spirits of Rhea make great use of smoothly flowing and
ebbing tones. Many of them open with a slow swelling of drone which
fades again to a quieter space, and then re-emerges again. They also
play with the expectations this creates in the listener, giving some
gradual overlapping and occasional discordant tones that reorient the
listener’s attention. A good number of the tracks feature the
blipping, sweeping tones of signals too, which adds extra flavour to
the often quite isolating soundscapes.
The feeling of
isolation and awe is wonderfully created by pretty much every track
on Spirits of Rhea. If ever there was an album to contemplate
the immenseness of space and how it might feel to be adrift around a
different star or planet, this is it. It is also an album that plays
well with a feeling of discovery. A prime example is the track Saturn
Emissions. The tones and drones of this track gave me the impression
of what it might be like to be scanning for a signal, minutes passing
of getting nothing but background noise. Then, a ‘squelchy’
signal starts to sound, and the other tones that emerge, a chime-like
impact and a resonance that tickles the air, create a feeling of
wonder and hollow dread at the same time.
Another track that
creates both a sense of wonder and the otherworldly is The Deep Sea.
It opens with the lapping of sea waves, but ones that sound somehow
vaporous as the track continues. There are high tones that almost
sound a little like wolf howls and later, a shimmery quality to the
track makes it feel a little unsettling. I guess it’s the aural
equivalent to waking up at the beach and then slowly realising that
the sea is the wrong colour, and that the sky looks strange!
Other tracks seem to
incorporate a sense of whimsy and the otherworldly in a different
style, most notably Through the Gates of the Silver Key and Signal.
The former, and to some degree, that latter, has a kind of distant
signal fuzz and shimmer, that create the feeling of a ‘whistley’
mirage. I know we are talking about a space-themed album here, but
they are the kind of tones that had me thinking of Pan’s
Labyrinth as much as 2001: A Space Odyssey. I really
enjoyed this after the more cold, bleaker feeling, of some of the
other tracks.
Spirits of Rhea
is a truly stunning album. It taps into those big feelings of vast
distances and cold realities, while mixing in a hint of the unknown
and the otherworldly. It manages to do this smoothly and calmly, by
recognising the power of the subtle to captivate and insinuate, and
feels all the more powerful for it. If you like dark ambient / space
ambient that makes you feel isolated and exposed, yet does it in a
non-threatening manner, Spirits of Rhea is well worth checking
out.
Visit the Spirits of Rheapage
on Bandcamp for more information. You can check out a snippet of
Spirits of Rhea below:
Proto U’s dark
ambient album Echoes of the Future continues the themes
explored in her previous albums: Earth Songs, Khmaoch
and The Edge of Architecture. The
theme of this album revolves around what a post-Earth event might
look like, humanity strapping themselves into gigantic metal vessels
and blasting off into the wider universe.
Album Blurb:
The space center sleeps as the sound of your boots echo down endless
hallways. Rocket fuel reeks from the colonization ships outside, one
more to go. You steal one final look at the charred horizon as you
enter the last ship bound for a new home. Do we deserve a second
chance? A deep space ambient album that invites you to take part in
the discovery of cosmic anomalies and abandoned space stations in
search of a new home.
As this is a space,
sci-fi type album, the expected rumblings, buzzings and beepings
don’t take too long to appear. They do this in a way however, that
remains interesting and full of texture. Take the opening track Gone
as an example. A mechanical “ticking” gets things going, a sound
that threads a sustaining rhythm through the other sounds that emerge
around it. Added to this are some mellow tones that move from ear to
ear and some rumbling thundery sounds. It’s hard not to imagine the
view described in the album blurb, gazing through the window of a
space station as massive ships start their drives, and float gently
away from their docking clamps.
Things change up for
the next track Interlinked, where a kind of shimmering hangs
in the soundscape. High tones join it that become almost shrill at
times. Among the other elements of the track are gentle buzzings, and
a fantastic “boiling” effect that to me, sounded like what might
happen if you could boil digital bytes, or code, in a saucepan. When
you get to the hints of voice transmission near the end of the track,
you feel like something has exchanged protocols and a handshake has
taken place. Maybe a ship has docked with the subject of my musing
below.
Next up is 43258D.
This track seemed to bring to mind what it might be like to visit a
steampunk-styled planet, one of metal, steam and fire. The muted
opening sounds, airy or watery, are joined by a deeper rumbling a
little later, and by the midpoint, help create a resonating
maelstrom. The fuzzed sound of an astronaut breathing at the end drew
parallels with the album art of Echoes of the Future, for me
at least. Someone who had entered a strange planet, made his or her
way through the hissing corridors and pumping chambers and finally
entered a glowing core of stillness and tranquility.
Drawings of Nebula
really seemed to be the audio equivalent of looking at some of the
stunning deep space photos that we get from the Hubble telescope.
There are “radio frequency sweeping” tones pinging off masses of
particles, and later, hissy static being joined by wolf-like howls
and more human voice-transmission effects. If the fleet or ship at
the heart of this album were passing close to a nebula, this track
does a good job of encapsulating what that might sound like.
The final track that I
wanted to mention, and also my favourite, is Hounds of the Void.
This track, for me, had an ominous tone. While the others were awe
inspiring, or simply interesting, this track rumbled with threat,
which I liked very much. It didn’t cause me to think of the human
fleet, but a change in viewpoint to an alien threat. Massive ships,
darker than dark, making their way through the universe looking for
prey. The track starts with a deep tone that throbs and pulses. These
pulses grow and are joined with other higher tones, which might
suggest starlight beginning to glint on clustered metal shapes that
weren't visible a moment ago. The track seems to contain a metallic
shimmer, that sits above the rumbling. There are small tones and
voice-like calls/beeps, I couldn't decide which. All I could do was
imagine this fleet moving past from a fixed point, the ships looking
sharp and dangerous, the soundscape making me feel like I didn’t
want to be seen. Absolutely fantastic.
Echoes of the Future
is another superb album from Proto U. If you enjoy the more
sci-fi/space ambient variety of soundscape that it contains, you
really should buy a copy when you can. It’s mellow, smooth, awe
inspiring and dark, the spaces it creates both massive and haunting.
A perfect album to listen to as these cold winter nights draw in.
Check out the Echoes
of the Future page on Bandcamp at this link. You might also like
to listen to Hounds of the Void below:
I was given a copy of
this album for review purposes.
Pavel Malyshkin (
Ugasanie ) presents us with his dark space project Silent Universe.
Explore the anomalies that lurk in the infinite dark. Listen to
magnetic readings of dark space as you probe the unexplored. This
album brings dark rumbling sounds in the raw isolated style that is
Pavel's expertise. Recommended for fans of space ambient.
There’s something
seductive about the harsh, empty vastness of space. One of my
favourite meditative practices is to imagine myself resting on some
kind of spacecraft as it journeys from one galaxy to the next, the
light of a million stars glinting on its hull. When a dark ambient
album comes along that fits that theme, I take to my bed and indulge
those images with eyes closed and blanket warm. The Infinity
Coordinates is the latest that has accompanied me, and it did its
job wonderfully.
The soundscapes created
are smooth and expansive, the tempo fitting the shape of a universe
in no hurry to provide entertainment for a puny human on an
intergalactic jaunt. That being said, there are quirks and
interesting events that you almost feel lucky to have witnessed,
rather than them being orchestrated just for you. One example is
opening track Spiral Space, a composition that creates a soundscape
of flaring sounds; a shimmering environment in which you wouldn't be
surprised to meet your own self coming towards you from the other
direction. Things seem to move on later in the track, giving the
listener the feeling of being left behind, much like seeing a
jump-ship speed away from the vantage point of a desolate moon.
The idea of desolation
brings me onto another track that I wanted to mention by name:
Emptiness of Other Worlds. The deep drone and what appear to be
robotic sobs meld with the other sounds to create the impression of a
space traveller finding a deserted city on some backwater planet, but
one that is millions of years unoccupied. The music gave me the
impression of harsh shadows picking out the remains of architecture
as the nearby star casts its rays over the lifeless dust. A
melancholy soundscape but one well worth spending time inside.
Pulsar is another great
track, one that builds into an electromagnetic soundscape that tunes
the listener into the sounds of a pulsar. Other elements in this
track create a pulsing momentum, and I half got the impression of the
beam of the star, when it came my way, resembling a giant eye staring
at me. And no, I’ve not just watched too much Lord of the Rings.
The Infinity
Coordinates is a very fine album, one that leads the listener
through a space that, at times, seems impartial, and at others, seems
to be half aware of being visited, even if millions of years too
late. If you enjoy the setting of space, The Infinity Coordinates
is an album to pick up when you can.
Visit the The
Infinity Coordinates page on Bandcamp here for more information,
and be sure to check out Pulsar below:
Alphaxone (Iran) &
ProtoU (Ukraine) join forces on Space Ambient album Stardust.
Float
weightless in the void to the sound of exploding supernovas. A solid
thump closes the airlock behind you. Greeting your vision, a myriad
of stars shining like beacons in black space. Rapid fingers across
the uplink to the mothership "Feed my cat while I'm gone".
The engine roars as the plasma ions accelerate. The mothership but a
pixel left behind. Your ship's humming soothes your excitement as you
set out for new unexplored worlds.
Alphaxone’s spacey
synthesizers sweep in and out of ProtoUs iconic filtered noise on
this unique release. Recommended for lovers of space ambient and old
school science fiction soundtracks.
Space Ambient, or
Sci-Fi Ambient, is a particular variety of sound that, to a tired
mind, can end up being a gateway to long-ranging mental vacations, to
places so far away that the air-miles collected would probably be
enough to buy this planet. Alphaxone and ProtoU’s Stardust
is one such album, a collection of seven tracks that entices the
listener with the smooth quietude and uproarious activity that might
be experienced in the deep heart of the universe.
The opening track is
Consumed, a composition that opens with the grainy sound of what just
might be teeny tiny rock particles fizzing as they hit the metal of a
vast starship, the rumble of its engines and the creaking of its
structure beckoned on by a gentle, almost Om-like sound, as it
plunges deeper into the void. The sounds of rumbling bass and
electronic warbles set up a soundscape of activity but indifference,
a lonely space, the sounds of broken transmissions only serving to
heighten this effect. It ends more warmly however, as birdsong creeps
into the soundscape.
The next track is
Planemo Dreams, and this track is a whole different environment.
Dripping water and rain is very much the order of the day, but it’s
accompanied by the roar of what might be a malfunctioning artificial
intelligence, at least to my own warped mind. Circuits hiss and
sputter as water droplets run down unresponsive screens, their
glowing icons slowly growing dim. A gently throbbing drone with
subdued plucked strings and high, flute-like notes adds other
interesting touches to a more organic, but still seemingly
uncomfortable soundscape.
Up next is Observing
Quasars. A leisurely bass pulse twins with a swelling and fading
higher tone to hint at vast distances swallowing both time and
matter. Lighter tones accompany what could be the sunrises and
sunsets on a billion unknown planets, a fiery dance in the dark
blanket of space, spitting out sparks of energy in all directions.
Versus emerges next, a
track that begins with birdsong and a looming drone. Burbling sounds
of machineryesque sound is punctuated by a lone chime. A swell of
horn. Another chime. A whisper-like sound with footsteps. A
vocal-like cry seems to herald a new dawn, almost sounding like a
distant steam-engine might. Around the midpoint, an electronic
beeping becomes the focus, a chant-like grumbley backing drone
hinting at technological happenings. The track ends with a deepening
drone and a whitenoisey hiss.
Sub Signal features a
low drone, delicate electronic tones, undulating vibrations and hums.
It grows in intensity. Smooth electro-crackling echoes down empty
corridors, probing and testing them. There is also a hollow sound, a
bit like what might be made by blowing down a glass tube. Remnants of
a transmission mumble near the end, beeps and chirps sounding insect-
and bird-like as things begin to fade.
Alignments is the
penultimate track and brings with it a kind of distorted buffeting
that could definitely sound like gigantic thrusters manoeuvring
things into position. Electronic notes seem to rotate and confirm
paths... the whole track seems to have an 80’s sci-fi kind of
flavour, a kind of bouncing electronica that is fun to listen to.
The final track is
Returned. A deep rumbling begins proceedings, small detail sounds
adding other areas of interest. A staticy-drone serves as a popping
backdrop, like bubbles bursting in a bubble bath. A growing,
high-pitched whine sets the scene for a lighter drone to emerge, a
claxen/signal sounds, the hum of engines, and a sound that verges
between a modem handshake and a baby’s cry.
Stardust is a
dark dose of rumbling sci-fi that manages to mix the ingredients of
both void-like drones and more nature-based field recordings in a way
that seems to work very well. I often like to create my own
narratives when listening to a dark ambient album, and the only issue
this mixture of sounds caused was a kind of mental disconnect from my
own personal imaginings. I am sure that with time, I would come up
with appropriate mental imagery that makes sense of the majority of
what is going on in each soundscape, but in the mean time, that is
certainly nothing to hold against this collection of rich ambient
tracks. If you want to check out some very good space ambient, turn
out the lights, kick back with a good pair of headphones and sprinkle
some Stardust on proceedings.
Visit the Stardust
page on Bandcamp here for more information. You can check out Observing Quasars below too.
