reqoil.

Beneath (or above) a  world full of melodic music with lyrics about love, hate, sex, violence, happiness, sadness, occasionaly a dog, a bar, a farm, and any combination of the above, there lies a world with no lyrics, no melody, and occasionally, no music.

This is the world of dark ambient.

It consists of some of the most terrifying and surreal soundscapes you’ll ever come across, and it’s more often than not [delivered quite violently] with harsh noises, unexpected sounds, and horrible emotions. Needless to say, the people interested in this genre of music are few and far between. The same applies to the artists. Theres an unfortunately small number of producers and record labels that create this subconciously intense noise.

Desiderii Marginis, with 9 full length releases and 10 compilation appearences  to date, is one of the most seasoned and deserving artists of recognition. Johan Levin, a swedish archaeologist at the meuseum of Ostergotland, started Desiderii Marginis as a solo project as early as 1993 as a means to release music that wasn’t acceptable to release under his main band (at that time), The Wounded Meadow.

Desiderii Marginis is deep, dark, and more than capable of changing your entire outlook on life, atleast while your listening to his albums. He has quite a few drone like sound scapes and some of the most powerful and emotion altering noises in the industry. His prodution is flawless and his personal expression is clearly articulated through his music.

Incase you’ve come across this article in search of dark ambient artists, I’ve put together a list which I’ll updating regularly, which you can find here.

Promoe is basically fucking awesome. You’ve probably heard him while listening to Looptroop as early as ‘92, and never even noticed. According to my iPod I’ve listened to Promoe about 680 times in the last year with an almost non existant skip count. I’d say that’s pretty good.

If you have any interest in a hard blend of Raggae and Hip-hop from a crazy swedish white boy with a lot to say about life, politics, and the swedish street art scene, then start spending a lot of time listening to Promoe. Easily one of the best MC’s out there right now.

I had to listen to it twice before I knew what I thought. Simply because the entire first round was basically spent on the edge of my seat waiting for some glitchy breaks and some industrial thumps. About 50 minutes into the album I got past my denial and just realized that they were infact, not going to come. I knew I had to listen to this album with an entirely different ear now that it was apparent that it was going to be an entirely ambient album.

So I started it over.

It was dark, (thus the name, one would think) however it wasn’t the darkest ambient album I’d ever heard. It was dark but stayed light hearted with some very loud but well spread out piano hits. The first few tracks had a very Paul Ruskay Homeworld OST style to it, while as I got more toward the end it felt more along the lines of Stratvm Terror, or Necrophorus.

All in all it’s a good album, but realistically the next time I had the urge to listen to Hecq, I’d put on Bad Karma, A Dried Youth, or 0000.

The album cover reads the following:

“I am not myself. I am the one
Walking by my side, without me seeing him,
The one I often visit and the one I often forget.
The one, who remains silent when I speak,
Who gently forgives, when I hate, who wanders
Where I’m not, who will stay upright, when I die.”