Since electronic music is getting darker and darker and showing no signs of slowing down in its descent into the abyss, we thought we'd list some of the bleakest ever bleak tracks out there right now. And for everyone who thinks this is fringe music: Yeezus. It's not really about a certain genre, more about a sense of total abandon.
Remember: it's only underground until your favourite rapper claims it.
Oh, and somehow we ended up thinking about which books to read while diving in, so we added that, too.
PHARMAKON
Something rotten sounding from the state of Denmark: 'Pharmakon' is by far the most skincrawling music out there right now. From the intense scream at the beginning, to the beating of beast's wings in the middle, "MILKWEED/IT HANGS HEAVY' is a submission to oozing existential darkness.
If you like this, read this: the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, (340)
By Emily Dickinson
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading - treading - till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through -
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum -
Kept beating - beating - till I thought
My mind was going numb -
And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space - began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here -
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down -
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing - then -
RVNG: THE BODY x THE HAXAN CLOAK
The Haxan Cloak has become one of the more popular underground dark electronica producers, so there is some anticipation for his new project, a collaboration with metal band 'The Body'. That bass!
If you like this, read this: William Styron's 'Darkness Visible'.
DEATH GRIPS
Still the current rulers of not giving a f*ck, Death Grips' latest video is for a track from a previous album.
If you like this, read this: Ryunosuke Akutagawa, especially 'Hell Screen' or his autobiographical works.
SUN KIL MOON 'CARISSA'
Is it too soon to claim a top 3 spot in the 'best albums of 2014' list? Sun Kil Moon is an outsider on this 'total abandon' list: no drones, no screaming but his newest album 'Benji' is about as bleak a a bleached set of bones in the desert. In almost every single track someone dies and you feel it as a real loss every single time. A total abondon to grief and beauty.
If you like this, read this: Cormac McCarthy, especially 'Blood Meridian'
