saut

This thread is totally ripped from one on the official Opeth forums, but there were some great replies over there, so I thought I'd bring it on over here and see what the good folks of the TFP have to say on the matter.

Here are some of my favorites:

Godspeed You Black Emporer! - f# a# oo

This album really creates a dark, oppressive atmosphere, especially the monologue in the first track, Dead Flag Blues. It's very post-apocalyptic feeling and even a little scary at times. I believe that part of the second track, East Hastings was featured in the movie 28 Days Later, when the main character wake up from a coma and is wandering around a deserted, devastated London with no clue as to what happened. That really fits the mood of this album perfectly. It's simultaneously frantic and tranquil.


Ulver - Kveldssanger

This album makes me feel like I'm in a forest. It's very cold, and there's frost everywhere, but not much snow. Most of the trees are pine. The acoustic guitar melodies on this album are truly incredible, and the vocals (strong male chanting in Norwegian), while sparse, really make for a great atmosphere.


Tool - Lateralus

There was a time when this was pretty much this only thing I listened to, and for good reason. I feel like it all takes place at night, under an incredibly clear sky with a full moon. I also get a strong feeling that the ocean is nearby, and even that I'm wading in it occasionally. Now, a lot of this probably has to do with the lyrics (which make reference to the moon and ocean), but the music definitly enhances it.


I've got more, of course, but those are three that really stand out to me. Anyway, what albums create the most vivid imagery or atmosphere for you?

Seanland

hmm..

I was thinking the American Idiot Album By Green Day..
I donno, just the words in most of their songs in that album are about Hymms, and Jesus of Suburbia and stuff like Biblical but Urban, its weird its like the bible in the present, Its weird..

saut

Well.... um, I definitly wasn't expecting that. Greenday is not my (and I would suppose most others') idea of atmospheric music, but to each his own, right?


Anyway, over at the Opeth forum thread, there was a post by someone who had recorded an album designed for this sort of thing, called "Passion Immortal." Here's his pitch for it, which was actually posted on the Coheed and Cambria forums (horray for google!):

For those of you who may have passed up the link to the download, it's here: http://www.bumblelovesmusic.com/musi...onImmortal.rar

I have yet to listen to it, and the guy comes off as a bit of a pseudo-intellectual dumbass, but the people that have listened to it ("properly?") have given it great reviews, saying that it conjured up all kinds of images and emotions, even long forgotten childhood fears. This definitly smells of bullshit to me, but as I said -- I have yet to listen to it. It might be great, for all I know.

Anyway, I hope this thread goes further than most of the others that I start up here. Keep posting, people (person)!

snowy

Travis' album "The Man Who" always evokes traveling in me...it just feels like motion. I get the sense I'm in motion with it...even when I'm still. I now almost always listen to it on long car rides/bus rides/train rides etc. because of that initial feeling.

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saut

I always get that way when listening to The Doors (their better know stuff at least, not really, say, The Soft Parade), especially Roadhouse Blues for some reason.

Bacchanal

I can see why this was started on an Opeth board...

I'm going to agree with Lateralus, and go ahead and say all Tool CDs have some kind of atomsphere/imagery, at least in my eyes. I can't go into detail as well as you, because frankly, I'm not that well-spoken.

Pig Destroyer's Prowler in the Yard, Terrifyer and Painter of Dead Girls. They just have this real angry as fuck/sad/dejected feel to them. Good music for being pissed off. I know it isn't for everyone, but I love them.

Also not for everyone, Cephalic Carnage. Anything by them. The songs dont "blend together" like PxDx, but they definitely leave me with some crazy images, even though alot of the songs are about weed.

Clutch's self titled has some nice spacey stoner rock grooves throughout it. The Elephant Riders goes in another direction altogether, but still stays nice and stoney.

Tusko

the end- within dividia

isis- celestial, oceanic

saut

Speaking of stoner rock, anything by Kyuss makes me feel like I'm either driving through the desert on a blisteringly hot day, or floating in space. Quite a contrast, but for some reason, it works. The song Catamaran from (...and the circus leaves town, I believe), always reminds me of a cool little stream.

saut

Why does every thread I start come to such a quick end? I mean, I was sure I'd get tons of interesting replies for this one, but I got 4. Is the TFP as a whole so uninterested in music or what? Hell, the "Backstreet Boys are Back!" thread has like 25 replies. How many of you actually give two flying shits about the Backstreet Boys? Just looking in that thread, most of the replies are something along the lines of "haha I can't believe they're back" or "I wonder what will happen between Nick and Jessica!?"

This part of the TFP is for the discussion of music, not irrelevant pop culture. I would really love to have some quality discussions about music, but that just doesn't seem to be happening here.

While I'm on the subject of irks I have with the music forum here, I'm going to have to let you know how I feel about the "what's playing now" thread. There's like 5,000 replies to this thing and it's nothing but "Artist Name - Song Title." Does anyone care? What exactly is the purpose of this thing? There's no discussion, and I highly doubt anyone goes through 120 pages to see what everyone's listening to. What's the point of having a thread where everyone posts but no one reads? What a waste of bandwidth. If you really cared to see what someone was listening to, there are far more efficient ways of doing so. Audioscrobbler, for isntance (which I started a thread on long ago) is one of those ways. Perhaps a master audioscrobbler page would be better?

I didn't mean to offend anyone, so don't take any of that the wrong way. I just want to make this part of the forum as interesting and active as the rest of it is.



And for the sake of keeping this post relevant to the thread, I'm listening to Opeth's Damnation right now and I don't know how I forgot to mention it in my original post. I get a really strong sense of summer for some reason (which is odd for how melancholy and usually "autumn sounding" Opeth are), especially in the third song, Death Whispered a Lullabye. It's also rainy, especially in Windowpane and To Rid the Disease, but for the most part, I kind of get the feeling that is has just recently rained (especially in Death Whispered...) and there's still a dampness in the air and the sky is still cloudy and grey.

Hopefully someone will read SOME part of the above and comment.

Tusko

saut- i agree with you 100% i got to several other forums with the "what are you listening to now"... pointless.


and i agree to with the opeth comment, there are some different "seasons" that i hear in damnation. i listened to it alot in the spring and summer, and the two went very well.

not to mention the lyrics "summer is miles and miles away"

can't wait for the new record!

Architeuthis

Hehe

I love a good excuse to promote one of my favorite bands. This is clearly one..

Talk Talk: Spirit of Eden
Talk Talk: Laughing Stock

These 2 albums oozes atmosphere. Spirit of Eden has a bit more consistency to it, it is one of the saddest pieces of art i know of and it still manages to have an uplifting influence on me every time i hear it.

Another contender for heavy atmosphere is Tom Waits. He is really hard to categorize though since every record is very different from the last in "tone". His latest one "Real Gone" has a a nasty demonic feel to it.

saut

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more lyrics help to shape the feel of a song. I just realized that in addition to "summer is miles and miles away," there's "step out of the rain." I do still think that I would get the summer/rainy feel to the album even without those lines. I certainly wouldn't say lyrics define the atmosphere for me. Case in point would be two of the three albums I listed in my inital post -- one which has no lyrics at all, and one which is sung in Norwegian, which I do not speak.

And yes, I'm also really looking forward to the new album.

While we're on the subject of Opeth, I'll add another album of their's that has some good imagery; Blackwater Park. I get an extremely autumn feel from this one, and it's probably intentional. Track titles include Harvest and Dirge for November, very fall oriented words being used there. I'll break it down a little more for a couple of the songs:

Harvest gives me this feeling of rolling motion. The autumn vibe is really strong on this song too. I get a picture of an orchard (lyrics involve an orchard) with leaves falling and a light wind blowing them about. This is all from the perspective of a man laying on his deathbed.

The Drapery Falls. I don't know why, but this song feels "yellow" to me. Not like piss yellow, but a glorious golden shimmering light of god kind of yellow. It's broken up heavily by really dark colors, maybe a very deep purple. The end of the song (when the heavy section comes to an abrupt stop and the little singer/songwritter kind of strumming comes in) is where I get the most vivid imagery. I picture a man who strongly resembles Mikael (what freaks me out is that I got a very similar image before I knew what he looked like) in a dark room, looking out a window, pondering lost loves and all that shit he's singing about. When the main riff comes back for the outro, I get that sense of rolling motion again like in Harvest, and visualize spinning up into the sky through a cloud of cigarette smoke, looking down at the ground, which is covered in fallen leaves.

Dirge for November is easily one of my favorites as far as imagery is concerned. The music and the lyrics are a perfect compliment of each other. It's about suicide, but doesn't seem to be in a cliche kind of way. I feel like the narrarator has contracted some sort of awful disease, and as a result has torn apart and ruined the lives of his loved ones. To sort of gain redemption or contain the disease he carries, he sets fire to his house, then stabs himself to death while it's burning down around him. I'm not sure why I feel like he's burning the house down too, it might be how fucking dissonant it all sounds, but the lyrics make no mention of it. I wonder if any other Opeth fans ever got this feeling too?

In the title track, I get this really disturbing image of a town that's been torn apart and people lay dead and dying through the streets, fields, everywhere. There's also a really, really big, gnarly tree that's sort of the "focal point" of it all, if you will.


I guess those might sound like some pretty fucked up songs, but there's something very beautiful about it all.


I've never heard of Talk Talk. What sort of music is it? It sounds pretty damn good from what you've described.

Edit: I just read a couple reviews for Laughing Stock and Spirit of Eden on Amazon.com and it sounds right up my alley. I'll certainly make it a point to check those albums out.

hosti|e

Hrm, Obsolete by Fear Factory sorta feels like driving at night through a wasteland, finally hitting your destination as the sun is breaking over the horizon.
Call me odd if you must :P

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Architeuthis

Talk Talk started out as a synthpop band in the 80's. The 2 albums i mentioned is far away from anything resembling synthpop, but the development is clear on the albums between their first release and Laughing Stock.

It is really hard to categorize the music you will find on Spirit and Laughing Stock. I have heard some bands of whom it was said that they were heavily inspired by Talk Talk. They usually fail by a wide margin, even though they use a lot of the same "components". One BIG thing they have against them is that Talk Talk never performed the 2 last albums live...it is simply not possible. So in that respect any wannabe Talk Talk has a big hurdle to overcome right there.

There is a danish band that sounds as if they are trying to emulate some of the later Talk Talk. The band is called Efterklang...but they have a long way to go in my opinion.

roachboy

it often seems kind of difficult here for music threads to sustain themselves simply because there is a great diversity of interests here.
i think.
this is probably as a function of the range of ages of those who post. most of the folk who post here regularly seem younger, in a phase where they still identify quite heavily with various bands/musicians, etc.

the question posed in this thread seems to me to fit the pattern--what you associate with imagery, or with synasthetic experiences in general, with a particular release is (obviously) directly linked to the kind of music that moves you.
for example, i know about godspeed and link their first ep but not much after that--i kinda like tool, particularly their first three records, but have lost track of them a bit--burzum will pull me into a space parallel to what is described above with reference or opeth, but only if i am in a particular mood--i do not listen to the same types of music as what i see talked about here--i do not play the kind of music that i see others talking about here--so most of the time i feel like what i might write here is simply arbitrary for others. with the result that this forum is often something if a vacuum insofar as i am concerned.


to answer the question:

sun ra pretty consistently pulls me into a strange visual space.
as i am sitting here, "angels and demons at play" is on the soundsystem, and it is working my brain over pretty thoroughly. atlantis, magic city, when angels sepak of love, lanquidity, space is the place, concert for the comet kahotek, cosmic tones for mental therapy are among other preferred sun ra recordings----each seems to drag me into such a space, whether i like it or not.

the most hallucinatory music i listen to these days is the stuff i do with clairaudient, but i cant tell if this would translate for other folk--i have once in a while posted requests for feedback, and they get one or two responses (which i appreciate) before they fall like stones into the void of unused threads.

other stuff that does this:
there is a compilation called "austral voices" of experimental music from australia that is really amazing--in particular the alan lamb track that uses singing telegraph wires in southern australia as its source---the sounds, the distant metallic clanging, all of it--just amazing.
james tenney's postal pieces and forms 1-4 as well.

but there is lots of music that does this--glenn gould playing bach's goldberg variations for example.

alot depends upon how you listen to music--if it is the focus of your attention, if you have it on while you do other things.
and any perception of "atmosphere" changes over time.

btw: talk talk is a vastly underrated band.

[[edited for many many typos]]

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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Ramallah

Definitely. Any Isis album is great to just sit back and listen to, and let the images flow in your head.

Neurosis is good for that as well... not surprising since Isis is influenced heavily by Neurosis, although Neurosis has a much more evil sound. I'd also have to say Agalloch - The Mantle (sounds very bleak and cold) and Jesu - Jesu (also sounds bleak, but with a few rays of hope shining through)

kalashnikov

Deltron 3030 is fantastic if you need that post-apocalyptic hip-hop feel. Between the lyrics and samples, both of which are incredible, it is definatelty a one of a kind hip-hop album.

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Booray

I've complained of the same thing on another board I frequent where the same thread has popped up. For whatever reason, I posted on that thread on this board a couple of times while bored knowing full well that no one would ever care to read what I posted.

Great album for this thread and good description. The first time I heard the album, parts of it reminded me of some of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western soundtracks with a sort of post-apocalyptic bent. I think it'd be a great soundtrack for a movie adaptation of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series.

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Still aware of everything life carries on without

kutulu

Saut, I hear you. The most lacking forum here is the music forum. To me it's a wasteland.

A couple for me:

Mr Bungle: It makes me feel like I'm at a carnival on acid with psychotic clowns.

Fear Factory albums have this post-apocolyptic Terminator atmosphere to them (especially Obsolete).

SiN

saut - I think this is a great idea for a thread, and I must admit I agree with the sentiment of your 'rant'.

unfortunately I've been too busy/braindead/not listening to much of my rather large collection, to make many contribs.

I'll be pondering this some, and will get back to it

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saut

Alright! People agree with me AND are contributing to the thread.

*Checks temperature of hell*

I agree with you on Agalloch's The Mantle sounding very cold. I haven't listened to it much, but I definitly get a wintery feeling from the whole thing.

muckluck

I would say Pink Floyd's The Final Cut has a lonely, desolate grassy feild type of atmosphere.. maybe that's just my interpretation. Tool's Undertow has a dark farm-like (listen to Disguspitated on the album) sci-fi feel to it. I'll think of more.

trickyy

i really like m83. it's kind of in the post rock vein. sounds like the backgound score to a great film. check out dead cities if you're interested, it's still my favorite of their albums.

speaking of post rock, the video for untitled 1 is pretty cool if you haven't seen it.
http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/media/dldvideo.html

Tusko

"have to say Agalloch - The Mantle "

the beginning of "kneel at the cross" scares the sh*t out of me (summer time is come again (coming in?) etc) i dunno, it just gives me chills.

klep

mogwai - happy songs for happy people, tool - lateralus, clann zu - rua all give me strong images and have a lot of atmosphere but i find it hard to put in to words. Nick drake's album Five Leaves Left gives me the feeling of spring time but not a happy one.

calexico - a feast of wire gives me very vivid images of a mexican landscape and dusty, forgotten towns.
Fourtet - Rounds has a very summery feel


dont have my music collection here so cant think of any more at the mo.

saut

Pink Moon gives me a similar feeling. I'd say you just summed up most of his catalogue, actually.

Stompy

1. Fantomas - Delirium Cordia

VERY bizarre and dark. It has been described as "a soundtrack to a twizted nightmare."

Eerie melodies, incredible imagery (at least, for me), and overall wonderful.

2. NIN - The Fragile

If you listen from beginning to end... it's almost telling a story, I think. Very atmospheric and emotional - ranging from self loathing, to confusion, to anger. The instrumental pieces really do this album wonders.

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I love lamp.

loonatic8her

I agree whole heartedly w/ mcuk here on the Floyd's Final Cut thing... there is a line from a song here that mentions Green Fields and Dragons that when paired with the brilliant music displays imagery so lucid you can smell the grass in your mind. Also Floyds Animals does the same for me... Sheep is such an imagination inspiration.... We could go on and on I am sure concerning Floyd... that is why they are the best Band to ever record music!

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The Loonatic

Did you get rid of all the voices in your head?
Do you now miss them and the things they said?

Janey

OMG ! the Backstreet boys are back???????

Janey

At any rate, I have some additions to the list:

I have to agree with the post about Green Day's American Idiot. Especially the very well executed video for Boulevard. the entire album gives me the shivers. I get a feeling of reprise of wasteland in Baba O'Reilly proportions. Actually the nihilsm in this album brings to my mind the work of Cake's early efforts (You're never there).

I would also like to include a coupl of older ones that I am hooked on:

King Crimson's Discpline.
Pink Floyd's Meddle

- both of these allow me to vacate my body.

Alan Parson's Project - Pyramid which along with most of ELO is evocative of the Beatles work and dream flights of fancy.

I also like the Queen-esque work of the Jazz Butcher Conspiracy.

These albums provide an atmosphere of optimism which i think is refershing from a post grunge era perspective.

Mumblefood

You just gotta try it dude, people like to talk shit, but if they haven't even attempted, how can they even really have a stance on it? i promise it's worth the time.

As for albums that do that to me, well... obviously that one above, which i think does so better than anything i've heard, but here's some others.

Stars Of The Lid - Tired Sound Of Stars Of The Lid
This one reminds me of a warm summer morning, with the sun just peaking over the horizon. It's so soothing and so tranquil. This was my album to sleep to for a long time.

Yen Pox - New Dark Age
This one is so opressive... it sounds like a death. It sounds like being slowly suffocated and drug down into hell. If i put this one on when i'm going to bed, it just makes me feel hopeless, and kind of terrified.