Dark ambient
| Dark ambient | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | Ambient industrial, Ambient music, Gothic rock (particularly Ethereal Wave) |
| Cultural origins | 1980s and 1990s, Europe and United States |
| Typical instruments | Electronic musical instruments, field recordings |
| Fusion genres | |
| Illbient | |
Dark ambient is a subgenre of ambient music which 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 a very diverse genre; it is often closely linked with industrial music, noise, gothic rock, and sometimes even black metal, yet can be free from any derivatives and connections to other genres or styles. The term is generally used as a catch-all for any form of ambient music that has dark, foreboding, ominous, or discordant overtones.
Overview
The genre did not have a single pioneering musician or persons who invented the term or genre, it somewhat evolved on its own, similar to that of the IDM genre. The roots of dark ambient can be seen in 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 Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics (1980), a collaboration with Jon Hassell.
Ambient industrial projects like Coil, Lustmord, Zoviet France, and Nocturnal Emissions evolved out of industrial music during the 1980s, and were some of the earliest artists to create consistently "dark" ambient music. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a "darkwave" and ethereal wave trend emerged within gothic rock, that tended toward moody atmospheric pieces rather than jangly minor-key rock. Darkwave was particularly associated with the Projekt record label, with bands like black tape for a blue girl doing music that ranged into moody ambient soundscapes.
By the mid-1990s, a large number of artists were working in ambient industrial, ambient noise, ethereal wave, illbient, isolationism, and other emerging "dark ambient" styles. Among these artists were Autopsia, Vidna Obmana, Daniel Menche, Lull, Raison d'etre, and Shinjuku Thief.
Generally the music tends to evoke a feeling of solitude, melancholy, confinement, and isolation. However, while the theme in the music tends to be "dark" in nature, some artists create organic soundscapes which don't prey on misanthropic tendencies. Examples of such productions are that of Oöphoi, Tau Ceti, Klaus Wiese, and Robert Rich.
Related styles
Ambient industrial
While dark ambient is primarily a descendant of ambient music itself, it is closely related to industrial music. Dark ambient gets the term dark from the dark theme often portrayed in industrial. Feelings of an industrial nature are present. Old abandoned factories, primitive machines, and noise. The dark 'non musical' and realistic feel gives some dark ambient its feel of solitude and isolation.
Ambient noise
Noise music is often regarded as a 'relative' or 'sister' genre to dark ambient, or vice-versa. Noise is considered unpleasant and dark, as is dark ambient. Some noise artists create almost ambient soundscapes, such as Aube, Junkielover, Daniel Menche, Kiyoshi Mizutani, Iszoloscope, and some Merzbow. Some, for example Iszoloscope, also compose ambient on the side, such as his Les Gorges Des Limbes album. While the two genres can't really compare sound wise, many labels, such as Ant-Zen, release both ambient and noise, as well as combinations of both, taking both avant-garde genres further.
Musique concrete
Some consider dark ambient to be more related to musique concrete, in the sense that it frequently utilizes natural sounds gathered through field recordings.
Black ambient
While black metal and ambient are nothing alike (other than utilizing minimalism to different extents), a lot of metal bands, specifically black metal, have side-projects in which they produce dark ambient, noise, or other experimental types of music. Many bands mix ambient in their albums, creating something unique and original, similar to that of Ulver and other avant-garde metal acts. Some people have spawned a new subgenre, black ambient, in relation to black metal, as it is often related to the ideology in some black metal, as well as linked to various forms of satanism. Related to this style are artists such as: MZ. 412, Aghast, Karna, WHEN, Wongraven, Neptune Towers, later Burzum, and Pazuzu.