I've never seen them, but I think the idea gets across pretty well with just Air Bud 2. They're going to keep making them forever (like Land Before Time), and I don't really want the list to contain nothing but dog and chimp movies.
Indeed, although I wouldn't call Biosphere dark ambient at all. I'm actually quite fond of albums that are like soundtracks to oceans at night or different aspects of nature.
There's certainly great ambient out there that has bleak, cold, and empty vibes in places - Biosphere especially - but I wouldn't call it dark. I may be wrong on this one, but I've always defined dark ambient as being sort of horror movie background music: the soundtrack to impending torture or brutal murder, or to something quietly excruciating like being buried alive or drowning. Like almost any Lustmord, or SRF's Nostromo. If that SRF album is more Biosphere than Deathprod, I'd probably like it.
Haha, we seem to have exactly the same taste in music.
I really agree, that "minimal" track is truly amazing. Ironic, self-deprecating dance music? What is it, indie rock? Almost any other week, it would've been much closer to the top. In fact, I'm adding it to my best of minimal list.
Acid jazz, deep house, abstract hip-hop, and a bit of nu-jazz. The difference between them is really slight - and IMO unnecessarily hairsplitting, but I'll outline it as best I can. It's going to be a bit long - defining differences is really hard between similar styles.
1)Deep house: prominent 4/4 bassdrum beat punctuated with hi-hats, with a funk bassline groove, accentuated and decorated with cool jazz elements. However, the beat and groove are the primary biggest characteristics. Melody and vocals are usually done with jazz instruments (or simulations of them) and vocals, if present, have a very subdued r & b or jazz-styled sound to them. It's essentially jazz-inflected house. Also the most consistently distinguishable of the three, since it's got that characteristic throb, which none of the other 3 will touch, ever.
2)Abstract hip-hop: DJ-focused hip-hop. The beat is fairly heavy and prominent, and has a tempo and rhythm typical of hip-hop. The melodies, background polyrhythmic drumming (drumming behind the prominent hip-hop beat) are usually jazzy in nature - they have a jazz-like sound. Most of this genre is made by a smoother form of turntablism applied to jazz records. Its greatest creativity comes with skillful record manipulation. Essentially, it's hip-hop taking on elements of jazz.
3)Acid jazz: extremely similar to abstract hip-hop. However, the beats are more subdued, almost to the point of being muted: the jazz melodies are the prominent aspect, rather than the hip-hop beat. There is also more variance in the beat - it's not quite as restrained to hip-hop's typical slow stumbling - although it always contains some rhythmic trace of it. It is always breakbeat in nature. The melodies are also generally less repetitive than abstract hip-hop - it's basically jazz taking on some characteristics of hip-hop.
4)Nu-jazz: Essentially just jazz that heavily uses electronics. Or the "free jazz" of acid jazz. It has less of the stylistic constraints seen in the other 3 styles. Melodies and jazz-influenced experimentation with electronics are the central aspects, but very unique drumming is also often employed. Some is indistinguishable from acid jazz and abstract hip-hop, but other tracks are undeniably nu-jazz - especially those that breaks the norms seen in these other genres.
One could also say they're different routes that led to (almost) the same thing. Deep house is made up of house artists applying elements of jazz to their music. Acid jazz was a combination of both jazz musicians incorporating elements of early breakbeat-based electronic dance music, and early breakbeat-based electronic dance musicians incorporating elements of jazz (it's technically actually 2 separate genres that are surprisingly distinguishable: the instrumental, live acts; and the DJ-based dance acts). Abstract hip-hop artists are hip-hop turntablists who incorporated aspects of jazz. Nu-Jazz artists are an eclectic lot: they are musicians from the IDM, 70's fusion jazz, hip-hop, experimental house, downtempo, acid jazz, turntablism, abstract hip-hop, and jazz-rap scenes who took influence from one or more of the other styles - but especially from 70's fusion jazz.
Honestly though, besides deep house, all three are released by the same labels, artists often flit back and forth between them, and they really do sound mostly the same. To be technically accurate, St. Germain are all 4, but for the sake of being conversationally concise, just call them nu-jazz.
Sleep Research Facility though? I've found a lot of their work to be the space music equivalent to Lustmord: Halloween-cheesy darkness - but in a collapsing space station, rather than a lava-filled cavern. Is that one any different? I listened to Nostromo.
Also note that I'm not much of a dark ambient fan. I generally find it either poor-quality and cheesy, or not very conducive to sleep. The aim of full-on dark ambient literally is inducing nightmares (or colouring a room with a terrifying atmosphere), and that's not my thing - nightmares give me a poor quality of sleep. In other words: good dark ambient would be that which would always cause nightmares (and I wouldn't be interested), bad dark ambient would be music that aimed for this and failed, and would therefore be poor quality music (and I wouldn't be interested).
I have. And I love it. There's a good chance it will go on here as I complete this list. I plan to eventually expand it to "Top *** dubstep tracks of all time", but I've only heard about 1400 tracks at this point. Plus, there's only 2 months of intensive listening behind this (well, plus 3-4 years of very passing interest and an occasional track or mix), and it takes time for classics to float to the surface.
Thanks for the kind words :D - I'm glad you're a fan. I wouldn't bother doing a mass download on it though - yet. It's going to be shaken up and added to quite a bit as I go - both adding tracks and refining my ordering. Also, I notice I have a bit of a (totally unintentional) bias for recent tracks, which is usually a sign of having not dug deep enough, or of being overly fond of some recently surfaced subgenre, to the neglect of older - and just as worthy - variants. I'll let you know when the list has stabilized a little more.
Hmmm...I can't find it on discogs. What year is it?
Yes, not bad. I'll have to think about where to put it though.
Thanks. I'm glad you like it.
Yes, that's quite true - the youtube method does work. However, if you want to get some higher quality versions, Soulseek is the way to go.
Glad you enjoy the list.
No, I never made that list. I find I can't listen to piano breakbeat hardcore for very long without getting tired of it, so I can't make a good list.
It does indeed. Thanks.
I've never seen them, but I think the idea gets across pretty well with just Air Bud 2. They're going to keep making them forever (like Land Before Time), and I don't really want the list to contain nothing but dog and chimp movies.
Really?
You don't mean ever, do you?
Indeed, although I wouldn't call Biosphere dark ambient at all. I'm actually quite fond of albums that are like soundtracks to oceans at night or different aspects of nature.
There's certainly great ambient out there that has bleak, cold, and empty vibes in places - Biosphere especially - but I wouldn't call it dark. I may be wrong on this one, but I've always defined dark ambient as being sort of horror movie background music: the soundtrack to impending torture or brutal murder, or to something quietly excruciating like being buried alive or drowning. Like almost any Lustmord, or SRF's Nostromo. If that SRF album is more Biosphere than Deathprod, I'd probably like it.
Sure, I'll take a look. Psytrance is really lacking on this list.
Haha, we seem to have exactly the same taste in music.
I really agree, that "minimal" track is truly amazing. Ironic, self-deprecating dance music? What is it, indie rock? Almost any other week, it would've been much closer to the top. In fact, I'm adding it to my best of minimal list.
Acid jazz, deep house, abstract hip-hop, and a bit of nu-jazz. The difference between them is really slight - and IMO unnecessarily hairsplitting, but I'll outline it as best I can. It's going to be a bit long - defining differences is really hard between similar styles.
1)Deep house: prominent 4/4 bassdrum beat punctuated with hi-hats, with a funk bassline groove, accentuated and decorated with cool jazz elements. However, the beat and groove are the primary biggest characteristics. Melody and vocals are usually done with jazz instruments (or simulations of them) and vocals, if present, have a very subdued r & b or jazz-styled sound to them. It's essentially jazz-inflected house. Also the most consistently distinguishable of the three, since it's got that characteristic throb, which none of the other 3 will touch, ever.
2)Abstract hip-hop: DJ-focused hip-hop. The beat is fairly heavy and prominent, and has a tempo and rhythm typical of hip-hop. The melodies, background polyrhythmic drumming (drumming behind the prominent hip-hop beat) are usually jazzy in nature - they have a jazz-like sound. Most of this genre is made by a smoother form of turntablism applied to jazz records. Its greatest creativity comes with skillful record manipulation. Essentially, it's hip-hop taking on elements of jazz.
3)Acid jazz: extremely similar to abstract hip-hop. However, the beats are more subdued, almost to the point of being muted: the jazz melodies are the prominent aspect, rather than the hip-hop beat. There is also more variance in the beat - it's not quite as restrained to hip-hop's typical slow stumbling - although it always contains some rhythmic trace of it. It is always breakbeat in nature. The melodies are also generally less repetitive than abstract hip-hop - it's basically jazz taking on some characteristics of hip-hop.
4)Nu-jazz: Essentially just jazz that heavily uses electronics. Or the "free jazz" of acid jazz. It has less of the stylistic constraints seen in the other 3 styles. Melodies and jazz-influenced experimentation with electronics are the central aspects, but very unique drumming is also often employed. Some is indistinguishable from acid jazz and abstract hip-hop, but other tracks are undeniably nu-jazz - especially those that breaks the norms seen in these other genres.
One could also say they're different routes that led to (almost) the same thing. Deep house is made up of house artists applying elements of jazz to their music. Acid jazz was a combination of both jazz musicians incorporating elements of early breakbeat-based electronic dance music, and early breakbeat-based electronic dance musicians incorporating elements of jazz (it's technically actually 2 separate genres that are surprisingly distinguishable: the instrumental, live acts; and the DJ-based dance acts). Abstract hip-hop artists are hip-hop turntablists who incorporated aspects of jazz. Nu-Jazz artists are an eclectic lot: they are musicians from the IDM, 70's fusion jazz, hip-hop, experimental house, downtempo, acid jazz, turntablism, abstract hip-hop, and jazz-rap scenes who took influence from one or more of the other styles - but especially from 70's fusion jazz.
Honestly though, besides deep house, all three are released by the same labels, artists often flit back and forth between them, and they really do sound mostly the same. To be technically accurate, St. Germain are all 4, but for the sake of being conversationally concise, just call them nu-jazz.
Sure, I'll give them a listen. Thanks.
Sleep Research Facility though? I've found a lot of their work to be the space music equivalent to Lustmord: Halloween-cheesy darkness - but in a collapsing space station, rather than a lava-filled cavern. Is that one any different? I listened to Nostromo.
Also note that I'm not much of a dark ambient fan. I generally find it either poor-quality and cheesy, or not very conducive to sleep. The aim of full-on dark ambient literally is inducing nightmares (or colouring a room with a terrifying atmosphere), and that's not my thing - nightmares give me a poor quality of sleep. In other words: good dark ambient would be that which would always cause nightmares (and I wouldn't be interested), bad dark ambient would be music that aimed for this and failed, and would therefore be poor quality music (and I wouldn't be interested).
I have. And I love it. There's a good chance it will go on here as I complete this list. I plan to eventually expand it to "Top *** dubstep tracks of all time", but I've only heard about 1400 tracks at this point. Plus, there's only 2 months of intensive listening behind this (well, plus 3-4 years of very passing interest and an occasional track or mix), and it takes time for classics to float to the surface.
Thanks for the kind words :D - I'm glad you're a fan. I wouldn't bother doing a mass download on it though - yet. It's going to be shaken up and added to quite a bit as I go - both adding tracks and refining my ordering. Also, I notice I have a bit of a (totally unintentional) bias for recent tracks, which is usually a sign of having not dug deep enough, or of being overly fond of some recently surfaced subgenre, to the neglect of older - and just as worthy - variants. I'll let you know when the list has stabilized a little more.
Pretty good, although a reading it is a bit on hiatus with all the work school is dishing out...otherwise, life's not too bad, you?