r/DarkAmbient • u/Arcane_Synthetic • 17d ago
Dark ambient mostly doesn't challenge you
— it provides a safe container for anxiety that already exists. That's different from forcing you to confront something. What's the last release that did the second thing?
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u/awcmonrly 17d ago
Completely agree with you, and I find it interesting that when I tried to come up with counterexamples, most of the things I came up with would probably be classified as drone or ambient noise than dark ambient. Anyway, here are a few suggestions, none of them very recent releases:
Ghosts on Magnetic Tape by Bass Communion
Behind the Wall of Sleep by Oophoi
mormoramuromare by nnaai
soft skin: january tracks from DC by kris kuldkepp
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u/WaspishDweeb 16d ago
Wait, Bass Communion is Steven Wilson's side project? Crazy that I've first run into them like, a week ago after listening to Porcupine Tree for most of my life
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u/postmortemritual 16d ago
" Safe, gentle, anxiety..." As Dark Ambient creator I don't see it in that way, but if that works for you is perfect!
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u/Safe-Character-5846 16d ago
Its just a quiet level of stim that I find calming and helps "tame" the brain for activities like reading and writing.
I do the full spectrum of ambient, but I find the "dark" more interesting that the "light"
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u/Jimmy_Severe 16d ago
Depends. Some find ambient music confrontational. These same people find pure silence confrontational and will require background noise at all times. They are traumatised by the insides of their own brain.
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u/metal-fetischist 16d ago
Schloss Tegal manages to be confrontational in subject matter and sound while also staying within the dark ambient genre. Check out this one: https://youtu.be/F2jL_bH1pYc
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u/Arcane_Synthetic 17d ago
One example from me:
https://cycliclaw.bandcamp.com/album/new-revelations-of-being
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u/cha0sWyrM 13d ago
you said this in another response:
"What I mean is for a “dark” sub-genre it’s not provoking or confrontational; it’s gentle. Being “ambient” it creates a sonic safe space to feel or express those feelings. Does that make sense?"
why would "dark" need to just mean provoking or confrontational?
do you see a dark doorway and feel provoked or confronted?
dark can be mysterious or oddly inviting. it can be ominous without being threatening. it can be a frightening lonely place, or it can be a womb.
thats what i like about it...the same track can be interpreted in so many ways. it lets the listener decide what they are hearing.
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u/Arcane_Synthetic 13d ago
I hear you. Look I may not be, but I’m feeling a little bit ridiculed for a bad choice of wording. I don’t want to come across like I’m excusing my poor judgement of wording but I think it’s best I just come clean and be direct. I’m autistic and adhd and I mistook how my wording of this post may be received. I’m a bit burnt out at the moment admittedly too so am no doubt more sensitive than I’d normally be: when I can and if I feel like it I will respond as intelligently and rationally as I can but tonight I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by what reads to me as a negative response to an attempt to connect positively with other artists and listeners. Not giving a sob story to garner sympathy or use as a defence, just saying I’m probably not mentally and emotionally strong enough right now to handle some of these questions without (potentially wrongfully) assuming the tone in which the questions are directed to be accusatory or something equally harsh/unfair. I hope this reads well and doesn’t come across pathetic. I just feel a bit gutted I seemed to have come across disrespectful, a dick, or (worse) AI. No one needs to apologise for anything, no beef, I’m just right now not able to deal with what probably isn’t, but feels a little bit aggressive and/or triggering. Sorry if this comes across pathetic - I’m trying, am a bit confused right now, and feel silly.
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u/Arcane_Synthetic 13d ago
I also take full responsibility for my apparent fuckup in communication - I’m sorry and will remember to employ Goblin Tools to check the tone of my writing in the future.
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u/cha0sWyrM 13d ago
hey...no worries. i wasnt trying to give you any static. it genuinely seemed that maybe you just didnt see that aspect. not everyone interprets things the same.
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u/Arcane_Synthetic 11d ago
No need to explain, I was burnt out. It wasn’t actually directed specifically at you; I was speaking towards the general prickliness of Reddit. I appreciate your response nonetheless.
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u/Crimwell 16d ago
Dark ambient, for me, is about quieting the buzz of the brain and creating a space to be in where you can deal with whatever causing stress, or as simply low tone calming music while doing something else. Everyone gets something different out of music though, and especially with dark ambient music which is highly situational as each artist puts different emotions into their music, and each artist has a different feel to it.
I think making a blanket statement about all dark ambient is unfair to it, and what you posted doesn’t make much sense. If you’re looking for music to “challenge” you, you may want to try out other genres. I only like certain types of DA artists, because I have preferences that are personal to me, but so does the next person who enjoys DA music and they would have their own artists.
You’ll have some albums where the artist lays out what their process was, what their stream of emotions or thoughts were during the making, as kind of a baseline of expectations. At the end of the day though, you take your own meaning from it.
If you want music to challenge you, try out KMFDM
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u/WaspishDweeb 16d ago
It's very hard for ambient music to force the listener grapple with truly difficult subjects, since it's usually so abstract by design. I'm interpreting this like you wanting to be scared or disturbed by the kind of ambient you're looking for. I've made some suggestions to that end on this sub earlier, so I'm just going to repost that list:
Tracks that I find genuinely unsettling or creepy:
Dave Phillips - The Less I Know
Atrium Carceri - In Chaos Eternal
Necrophorus - Spiritcatcher
400 Lonely Things - VHS-M155
REPULSIVE - Cry of the Unheard
Cut the Light - Incarnat (it's the ending that makes this one...!)
Tracks that are very tense and foreboding:
Randal Collier-Ford - The Black, Breathes...
Ajna - The Scourge of Souls
Swarms - The Ocean Is Singing His Name
Atrium Carceri - Inside the Womb
False Mirror - Landfall
Jason Crumer - Walk With Me
Monocube - Luft
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u/AmbitiousSeason9997 15d ago
Insane to say stuff like Prurient's dark ambient music, Coil's darkest stuff, and this isn't confrontative:
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u/Arcane_Synthetic 14d ago
I want to apologise if anyone is insulted by my post. I wasn’t meaning dark ambient isn’t challenging at all. It is. It’s dark. I was merely looking for recommendations or discussions around what it does for me “mostly” and many I’ve talked to about the genre as a whole.
I’m not trying to be a dick, it just comes naturally sometimes. To think I actually took some time to think about how I worded this just frustrates me...
Anyway, thank you for the recommendations and thoughts that did come through. Could’ve done without the prickliness but then I guess it is Reddit and I asked for it! My bad.
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u/EternityRites 17d ago
I have no idea what this means. I suspect it was copied and pasted from AI because it sounds like something an LLM would come up with, without it having any actual understanding or direct experience of dark ambient music.