Good list. The Cancelled Earth is a classic. Listen to Cryo Chamber playlists quite a bit when coding. One recommendation I want to add is William Basinski. He's a bit more on the experimental side but his stuff is good.
Thanks. I agree about The Cancelled Earth. Basinski does great work for sure, and I also agree that he's more readily placed in the "experimental" camp than dark ambient per se. But of course, as I mentioned, genre boundaries are more permeable than the purists will admit. If you have particular favorite Basinski albums you'd like to recommend, feel free to mention them here!
I put together a Skadi and Daina Dieva playlist a few years ago and it's been on repeat ever since. I just never tire of it. I very recently expanded the playlist with more of their work. Dark ambient is the only genre of music that doesn't start to bug me after a while.
I agree about never getting tired of dark ambient, despite many repetitions. Its timelessness is a unique draw of this genre for me. I feel that way about the work of Skadi especially, but almost all of the dark ambient I listen to is still in heavy rotation -- even albums that are 20-25 years old somehow still don't sound dated or stale to my ears in any way. Remarkable!
It does seem to speak to me on some very deep level. i like that is's minimally lyrical as well. So often words can get in the way of a deeper non-verbal meaning. I tend to pray in spirit language, something I picked up during my involvement with Christianity, but is really applicable in all forms of spirituality and magic, and with all gods, and other spirits.
Nice one. I've been listening to this style for only 15 years or so and I have to say my favourite album is "Nostromo" by Sleep Research Facility. I wonder what happened to the artist behind this...
Thanks. That's a classic album for sure, and a perennial favorite among dark ambient aficionados. A few years ago it was rumored that Kevin Doherty of SRF is no longer making music and has no intention to continue SRF, but I don't know if that was ever confirmed. Perhaps if someone who has more information stumbles across this thread, they will confirm? I'll report back if I find out more!
Thanks for this list, Danica. Going to be pouring over all of your suggestions. I have taken to listening to this kind of music while I study, and I find that I have really started to math and CompTIA textbooks in a sick kind of way.
Glad to hear you're enjoying these suggestions! Are you new to the genre, or have you been listening to dark ambient for awhile? I'm always curious about how people discover dark ambient, since it's still pretty marginalized. As for the textbooks, I'll assume you're using "sick" as a slang term for "good," though it isn't clear from context. ;)
I can relate to what you say about studying with this music. I find that ambient music in general is fantastic as an accompaniment for many tasks that require cognitive focus. I always listen to it while I write, for example.
It hits that sweet spot: it's engaging enough to keep my hindbrain happily occupied, but also leaves enough free space in my awareness to absorb and process more cerebral and complex material. I don't get the same effect when I listen to music with lyrics and more intricate rhythmic structures.
Yes, please excuse the clunky aphorism on my part.
I guess I got started by listening to music that specifically had no lyrics. While I of course enjoy such compositions, it is easy to enjoy those moreso than the work at hand for studying. This led me to "musicforprogramming.net" and the assorted playlists there. I especially liked the compilations that spent more focus on drone. I tried synthwave, and while that was okay, a lot of it is too poppy for my taste, and too bound to a specific 1980's aesthetic. I decided to keep branching out, and eventually, enough duckduckgo searches landed me here. Thanks again for spending the time doing this.
It's good that you found this newsletter through a DuckDuckGo search. I also use DuckDuckGo, but most of my search engine traffic for this newsletter still comes from Google. I'm also looking forward to the launch of the Brave browser.
If I'm understanding correctly, your decision to branch out from drone music and search for other styles led you here, and therefore to dark ambient. Fantastic! One of my main goals for this newsletter is to inspire newcomers to check out the genre and see if they like it, so it's nice to know it's working as intended.
Do you have any favorites you'd like to mention so far? I keep a list of the artists/albums/tracks that new folks respond to most favorably, and the ones that get repeated mentions eventually appear in future articles.
Funny you should mention music for programming specifically, as I've been slowly working on putting together a playlist for a friend of mine who's a software developer. I will take a closer look at that link - thanks!
While I am still working my way through the list, I have to say that I appreciate that you put Sephiroth front and center. The leadoff track on "Cathedron" really captured my attention immediately. I expect I have listened to that album seven or eight times now, and I had never heard it a week ago. It reminded me on Inon Zur's work on the Fallout franchise, but then I realized "Cathedron" predated that by about eight years. I'll come back to this when I have fully sampled everything here.
This comment really made my day, Douglas - thank you for that! I've made no secret of the fact that Ulf Söderberg (Sephiroth) is my favorite musician in any genre, and it always brings me joy when I learn that a new person has discovered his work.
That first track on Cathedron, "Wolftribes," is a perennial fan favorite. I still love it just as much as I did when I first heard it.
I'm not familiar with Inon Zur's work, but I will certainly check it out.
I've also got some good news in store for Endarkenment readers about the interview I did with Ulf Söderberg in 2018. More about that in an upcoming post.
And yes, please do update this thread whenever you are so inclined. Cheers!
Thanks for taking the time to let me know! Glad to hear you enjoyed this piece. I'd be interested to hear which artists/albums/tracks you like best, especially if you're completely new to the genre. Feel free to report back later on when you've had a chance to listen.
Dark ambient is still a relatively marginalized genre. It's not a style of music you're likely to stumble across if you don't go looking for it or hear about it from someone who's familiar with it. That's one of the reasons this newsletter exists: to help the music reach people who wouldn't know about it otherwise. Thanks for reading and listening!
Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it! Dakhma is probably my favorite Council of Nine album, and both of the two you mentioned are on Cryo Chamber. Great place to get started and find more by those artists.
If you listen to any of the albums I recommended, feel free to stop by again and let me know which of them you like best. I keep a list of beginner-friendly favorites, and it's always helpful to have more data points!
Good list. The Cancelled Earth is a classic. Listen to Cryo Chamber playlists quite a bit when coding. One recommendation I want to add is William Basinski. He's a bit more on the experimental side but his stuff is good.
Thanks. I agree about The Cancelled Earth. Basinski does great work for sure, and I also agree that he's more readily placed in the "experimental" camp than dark ambient per se. But of course, as I mentioned, genre boundaries are more permeable than the purists will admit. If you have particular favorite Basinski albums you'd like to recommend, feel free to mention them here!
I put together a Skadi and Daina Dieva playlist a few years ago and it's been on repeat ever since. I just never tire of it. I very recently expanded the playlist with more of their work. Dark ambient is the only genre of music that doesn't start to bug me after a while.
I agree about never getting tired of dark ambient, despite many repetitions. Its timelessness is a unique draw of this genre for me. I feel that way about the work of Skadi especially, but almost all of the dark ambient I listen to is still in heavy rotation -- even albums that are 20-25 years old somehow still don't sound dated or stale to my ears in any way. Remarkable!
It does seem to speak to me on some very deep level. i like that is's minimally lyrical as well. So often words can get in the way of a deeper non-verbal meaning. I tend to pray in spirit language, something I picked up during my involvement with Christianity, but is really applicable in all forms of spirituality and magic, and with all gods, and other spirits.
Nice one. I've been listening to this style for only 15 years or so and I have to say my favourite album is "Nostromo" by Sleep Research Facility. I wonder what happened to the artist behind this...
Thanks. That's a classic album for sure, and a perennial favorite among dark ambient aficionados. A few years ago it was rumored that Kevin Doherty of SRF is no longer making music and has no intention to continue SRF, but I don't know if that was ever confirmed. Perhaps if someone who has more information stumbles across this thread, they will confirm? I'll report back if I find out more!
Thanks for this list, Danica. Going to be pouring over all of your suggestions. I have taken to listening to this kind of music while I study, and I find that I have really started to math and CompTIA textbooks in a sick kind of way.
Glad to hear you're enjoying these suggestions! Are you new to the genre, or have you been listening to dark ambient for awhile? I'm always curious about how people discover dark ambient, since it's still pretty marginalized. As for the textbooks, I'll assume you're using "sick" as a slang term for "good," though it isn't clear from context. ;)
I can relate to what you say about studying with this music. I find that ambient music in general is fantastic as an accompaniment for many tasks that require cognitive focus. I always listen to it while I write, for example.
It hits that sweet spot: it's engaging enough to keep my hindbrain happily occupied, but also leaves enough free space in my awareness to absorb and process more cerebral and complex material. I don't get the same effect when I listen to music with lyrics and more intricate rhythmic structures.
Yes, please excuse the clunky aphorism on my part.
I guess I got started by listening to music that specifically had no lyrics. While I of course enjoy such compositions, it is easy to enjoy those moreso than the work at hand for studying. This led me to "musicforprogramming.net" and the assorted playlists there. I especially liked the compilations that spent more focus on drone. I tried synthwave, and while that was okay, a lot of it is too poppy for my taste, and too bound to a specific 1980's aesthetic. I decided to keep branching out, and eventually, enough duckduckgo searches landed me here. Thanks again for spending the time doing this.
It's good that you found this newsletter through a DuckDuckGo search. I also use DuckDuckGo, but most of my search engine traffic for this newsletter still comes from Google. I'm also looking forward to the launch of the Brave browser.
If I'm understanding correctly, your decision to branch out from drone music and search for other styles led you here, and therefore to dark ambient. Fantastic! One of my main goals for this newsletter is to inspire newcomers to check out the genre and see if they like it, so it's nice to know it's working as intended.
Do you have any favorites you'd like to mention so far? I keep a list of the artists/albums/tracks that new folks respond to most favorably, and the ones that get repeated mentions eventually appear in future articles.
Funny you should mention music for programming specifically, as I've been slowly working on putting together a playlist for a friend of mine who's a software developer. I will take a closer look at that link - thanks!
Correction to the above: I meant that I'm looking forward to the launch of the Brave *search engine.* I already use the Brave browser!
While I am still working my way through the list, I have to say that I appreciate that you put Sephiroth front and center. The leadoff track on "Cathedron" really captured my attention immediately. I expect I have listened to that album seven or eight times now, and I had never heard it a week ago. It reminded me on Inon Zur's work on the Fallout franchise, but then I realized "Cathedron" predated that by about eight years. I'll come back to this when I have fully sampled everything here.
This comment really made my day, Douglas - thank you for that! I've made no secret of the fact that Ulf Söderberg (Sephiroth) is my favorite musician in any genre, and it always brings me joy when I learn that a new person has discovered his work.
That first track on Cathedron, "Wolftribes," is a perennial fan favorite. I still love it just as much as I did when I first heard it.
I'm not familiar with Inon Zur's work, but I will certainly check it out.
I've also got some good news in store for Endarkenment readers about the interview I did with Ulf Söderberg in 2018. More about that in an upcoming post.
And yes, please do update this thread whenever you are so inclined. Cheers!
Thank you so much, what an excellent read. I'm going to have fun going through this.
Thanks for taking the time to let me know! Glad to hear you enjoyed this piece. I'd be interested to hear which artists/albums/tracks you like best, especially if you're completely new to the genre. Feel free to report back later on when you've had a chance to listen.
Thanks for your help. I never knew this kind of music existed.
Dark ambient is still a relatively marginalized genre. It's not a style of music you're likely to stumble across if you don't go looking for it or hear about it from someone who's familiar with it. That's one of the reasons this newsletter exists: to help the music reach people who wouldn't know about it otherwise. Thanks for reading and listening!
Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it! Dakhma is probably my favorite Council of Nine album, and both of the two you mentioned are on Cryo Chamber. Great place to get started and find more by those artists.
If you listen to any of the albums I recommended, feel free to stop by again and let me know which of them you like best. I keep a list of beginner-friendly favorites, and it's always helpful to have more data points!