The Predecessor of Dark Ambient

Brian Eno's album On Land (1982) is a very atmospheric, organic, and lovely album. It is concise enough without restricting the album's meandering nature, one of its best attributes. The album lacks the start-stop nature known to rock music and instead embraces slow moving music buried deep in the low register. Though the keyboard is a main instrument in each track there is a prevalence of ambient sounds, including, in one track, the sounds of ducks quacking.

Honest Bob and the Factory-To-Dealer Incentives

Honest Bob is a fun indie rock group from Massachusetts with occasionally nerdy lyrics.

Second and Eighteen is the only album of their's I have heard, but it's great anyways. Enjoy.

And now some Dead Can Dance in honor of Halloween spirit

I'm sure some of you have heard Dead Can Dance, the group's excellent debut which mixed western gothic rock and oriental styles. Their third album Within the Realm of a Dying Sun is another excellent album, although it diverges from the rock style found on the first album; this album still features western music in the form of the synthesizer, but I think the band has really started to carve out a style for themselves. I highly recommend this album.

Alcest

I'm sure a good amount of us have heard Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde , Alcest's full length debut. His EP, Le Secret, is an excellent mixture of black metal and shoegaze; it is raw, but soft and all around quite pretty. Try it out.

Wipers...an awesome Portland band

Wipers formed in the late 70s and broke up in the early 2000s or so, I believe. They are a very talented and unique punk band that influenced the grunge movement, especially Nirvana.

Try their album Youth of America, a punk album that balances its rawness and intelligent simpleness with dark post-punk textures. The album is just 30 minutes long, though it's only 6 tracks, which is quite unique for a punk album in 1981.
If you want a more traditional - though still unique - punk album by them, try Is This Real?
. This album has many different textures though its sound ultimately remains cohesive; the music does not sound that different whether it's slow or fast, though the speed does differentiate the songs. Some songs - like "Return of the Rat" - are swift and even sludgy, though "D7" is a slow, haunting theme. Nirvana covered both songs. Even with all the punk moments this album has, there is a rough pop song at the end called "Wait a Minute." The My Vitriol cover is also pretty good.

This time, video game music covers!

I thought I'd draw attention to CSGuitar89, who has done many covers of video game music on YouTube. See his site for his music, which isn't organized into albums, mostly mp3s. His Luigi's Mansion and Hyrule Field covers are pretty good, though a lot of his stuff is as well. His metal influences provide for very interesting covers.

Zelda Reorchestrated (Z.R.E.O.) makes some pretty good video game music, though specifically they use high-end synthesizers to update the music. Ocarina of Time is the only soundtrack they've updated entirely, but it stands much stronger with these revisions. Their Wind Waker stuff is also quite good.
OoT:









TWW:

Bizarro, and not the cartoon

Wedding Present is a post-punk/indie pop act from Leeds, UK, and they're worth trying out. Their music is raw enough, but still melodic, and they are quite good with song structures themselves. Try out Bizarro.

Vidulgi OoyoO

Vidulgi OoyoO - Aero (2007)

South Korean shoegaze band Vidulgi OoyoO's debut album. The stand out tracks of "Elephant", "Murmur's Room" and "I Might be You" make this a must listen.

Post #2

In order to prevent my posts from becoming stale, I thought I would vary what music I post. You guys should check out this remix album of mine, which I called Goodbye AirPokemon The Giovanni Is Dead. I experiment with "mash-ups" - term to be used lightly - and just try to make interesting remixes. A bit long at 55 minutes, but I remixed a variety of material, including Joy Division's "Eternal," a Metroid theme, and some Silent Hill 2 tracks.

Since I'm telling you about those, I'll link two other remixes. "Thorntail Hollow (Blizzard)" is a remix of a theme from Star Fox Adventures, specifically the day theme for that area. In it I tried to introduce a Cocteau Twins-esque chill ambient air. And, Dire Dire Docks. No explanation necessary.

Friendly Fires - Pala

Here's a very hard-to-find album by Friendly Fires, called Pala. It's got a pretty nice range of tones, mostly tropical, however there are songs like Pala and Helpless which definitely turn it from a C+ to a B+ album. Album art redirects to the mediafire page.

Summer ending/over have a summer album!

Cults - Self titled (2011)

Cults EP (2010)

I'll begin my posts with the three song EP and debut album of the lo-fi indie pop duo Cults. One of my favorite albums this year with it's catchy summer pop songs such as "Abducted", "Go Outside", and "Rave On".

 Cults website

Buy the album here 

First Post

I thought I'd start us off with The Inception soundtrack. For a number of reasons, this soundtrack is enjoyable: the standard "it sounds cool" reason, there is a varied sound, the music is listenable, and it is fairly concise at 49 minutes and 12 tracks. The second concern I will elaborate on. This soundtrack has three general moods: ethereal ambient music, guitar-based instrumental rock, and the usual HOLLYWOOD MOVIE classical music. Hans Zimmer continually shifts between all three keeping the album interesting, so it does not sound just like the music of some generic Hollywood action film. y;

Check it out.