Suggestions
Suggestions
Dark ambient stands at the opposite end from Brian Eno’s idea that ambient music should stay in the background. Its beats are toned down or gone, and treated guitar, eerie samples and keyboards build unsettling passages. The artists have come from industrial and metal experimentalism, electronic music, Japanese noise and indie rock, from Scorn’s Mick Harris and Current 93’s David Tibet to Merzbow and Bark Psychosis, and many move in and out of the style from one release to the next.
Petrolio named “Club Atletico” after one of the detention centres the Argentine dictatorship used against political dissenters, and built the EP out of research into imprisonment, digital and analogue equipment side by side. Providence artist Mariassunta recorded “Il Vulcano” in pandemic isolation, hypnotic chant set against distorted guitar and airy vocals. Sydney’s FILTER THEORY came the other way, bringing modular synthesis to guitar-based noise.