Dark Ambient

squashed · Dark Ambient

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, Lilith, 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, an ethereal wave trend emerged within the dark wave movement, that tended toward moody atmospheric pieces rather than jangly minor-key rock. Ethereal wave was mainly 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, Nefelheim and Shinjuku Thief. In the same time dark ambient vibrated into contemporary classical music. Example of this can be project Aghiatrias or solo works of composer Vladimír Hirsch.

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 those of Oöphoi, Tau Ceti, and Klaus Wiese.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_ambient

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http://peb.pl/inne-utwory/110980-brian-eno-albumy.html

Brian Eno - Music for films (1978)
There are some beautiful moments on this record. You know, Eno is an all out enigma, you could easily argue that his ambient work is full of such minimalist instrumentals, that you get to thinking he isn't that great a musician. Yet, as any fan of Eno, would testify to, he makes his records, so engrossing that as a listener, you keep coming back for more and more. So there must be something very special going on here. As a result the only conclusion to come to, is that, in fact Eno IS a genius after all. Nobody makes this kind of skeletal electronica like Eno. Stripped bare, this requires an intelligent listener to interpret the sounds into landscapes. If, as a listener, you have a good imagination, then this record and most of Eno's ambient efforts are like going on a journey, that changes each time. As a result, here we have an aural holiday, a tweaky signal for our brains to become stimulated. This music is the trigger, the open doorway to step through and cleanse our souls, like a room 101 from Orwell's 1984 - an escape for mind travellers.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illbient

Illbient is a term coined by DJ Olive to describe the iconoclastic music being produced by a community of artists based in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York in the early 1990s. The word "Illbient" is a portmanteau of the hip hop slang term "ill" (a positive expression: bad meaning good) and "ambient".

Though there are many individualistic variants of Illbient, the music is characterized by interesting dub-wise layering of soundscapes, hip hop-influenced use of samples and a progressive approach to beat programming that encompasses all genres of world groove and electronic music.

Illbient was introduced to the public at large in 1996 through the Asphodel Records Incursions in Illbient compilation and a feature in The Wire magazine.

The use of the term "Illbient" was propagated by the music press rather than the artists themselves (the notable exception to this dynamic being the music journalist Paul D. Miller aka the turntablist DJ Spooky). This disconnect has led to ambiguity about whether Illbient is merely a NYC subgenre of trip hop or a marketing gimmick used by DJ Spooky and Asphodel Records.

According to DJ Spooky, DJ Olive started an event in Brooklyn called Lalalandia. It is perhaps worth noting that DJ Spooky also claims to have invented the word Illbient in relation to the multicultural digital arts scene in Manhattan. To his credit, he released Necropolis, a mix CD in 1995 that brought together many of the artists who later claimed to have invented the term including DJ Olive. His events like Molecular at The Gas Station on Avenue B and Second street in Manhattan set the tone for later developments in the genre.