18 June 2009

More gloom and doom


At the end of this post in my round-up of apocalyptic/millenarian popular music, I completely forgot about dubstep's hazier edges. The first Burial album of course: London flooded by global warming. Shackleton's stuff is absolutely soaked in future-dread, and Villalobos's remix of his 'Blood on my Hands' was subtitled 'Apocalypso Now'. I think Sam has cited DMZ & Loefah's 'Horror Show' as the track that got him into dubstep. Worth checking its very doomcore klaxon-squeal and background shrieks. entschwindet und vergeht reckons this stuff needs a name of its own: 'What to call it? "Despondant-Techno"? "Mournful Minimal"?, perhaps it should be known as "Haunted House" (arf arf!)' ... Doomstep surely!

Simon Reynolds also linked to an article of his on doomcore/gloomcore over at Blissblog. Faaaar more historical background and detail than my effort and some great descriptions:
PCP's punisher-beats are cunningly inflected, alternating between saturated intensity and stripped-down severity. Above all, creativity comes into play with the timbral density of the kick itself: how thick, how wide, how voluptuously concussive each cranium-denting impact can be.
Voluptuously concussive! These quotes from The Mover also grabbed me:
'Mover is dark because it's set in the phuture of mankind. I can't possibly justify seeing a happy end to this stupid human drama. Darkness is not mystical, it's your everyday reality.'

'Imagine surveying earth after nuclear destruction and enjoying what you see, that's how it feels when you listen to it.'
...Because they sound like Malefic from Xasthur interviewed here:
Genocide is the ultimate goal, the ultimate dream as is the most fair and deserving thing to solve all the problems and hypocrisies of this world. We are all asking for it, whether we know it or not! This is one way that you might consider it to be subliminal. Behavior is contagious, death is contagious, suicide is contagious, therefore genocide is contagious-- if you really open your eyes and take notice. Destructiveness and negativity is hidden in all of our words, actions (or lack there of), thoughts, and sentences. We help each other fail, none of us are doing anything to rehabilitate this planet, so therefore we are shaping its end. We are all fulfilling a prophecy, once again, whether we know it or not! Hopelessness is the key to the domino effect and it begins here, going beyond good or evil. There is only chaos.
Finally, does anyone know of black / death / doom metallers who have listened to gloomcore – and vice versa? Does the Mover dig Burzum?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

>and vice versa? Does the Mover >dig Burzum?

Fifth Era or Crossbones are metalheads for sure. The Mover has more of a hip hop background in terms of music taste. Miro/Reign is a big fan of Motorhead...and you can easily hear the black/death influences on his Kotzaak stuff.

Anonymous said...

Even if he's no doomcore producer/dj, mark n (of nasenbluten fame) digs burzum, as stated in his list of favourite records on cyclic defrost, alongside a rant on PCP's productions and doomcore in part three (2006 article http://www.cyclicdefrost.com/article.php?article=1232)

Matt Poacher said...

Distance is a pretty metal dubstep DJ - I'm sure he did a metalstep set for Rinse or DMZ.

Here it is - for Mary Anne Hobbs: http://square-dancing.blogspot.com/2007/04/vexd-distance-metalstep-mix.html

Link is still live as far as I can tell.

Sam Davies said...

Thanks Matt, I'm d/ling that now. Vex'd are pretty metal/doomcore too - all that black distortion and noise terror.

SIMON REYNOLDS said...

i checked the mark n thing at cyclic defrost -- it's not a rant but a paean to PCP/the mover and also mainly to this record i'd never heard of, on one of the PCP sub-labels,

"The track �Nowhere� on side B however, turned out to be one of the most amazingly sombre and morose pieces of music I had ever heard and it immediately put a downer on the entire evening."

I need that record!

he further goes

"I remember from that point on I couldn�t bring myself to listen to the entire piece again... This was a serious example of powerful music that dealt with the seldom-acknowledged normal human experience of grief, mourning, sadness, bereavement and sorrow. The record was obviously for listening to only in times of quiet contemplation or solitude � and without a fucking dance floor in sight."

but he does play it one more time when he's leaving his hometown in australia and needs catharsis, puts it on and cries "like a little girl" for ages

well i'm sold!

brain like a sieve though i've forgotten the name of the artist and sub-label, i'll come back with it in a minute

SIMON REYNOLDS said...

the artist name is Destination (an alias for guy whose main pseudonym was Stickhead, a pcp mainstay), the sublabel was Narcotic Network Recordings

here's the Mark Nasenbluten piece, part 3 of a series on his favorite tunes it seems

http://www.cyclicdefrost.com/article.php?article=1233

i always thought that the Burial tune 'southern comfort' had a bit of a gloomcore vibe, those snowy wooshes of sound

Anonymous said...

One story about Destination - Nowhere. In 1998, there was a big party in Paris at Bercy, the biggest french indoor concert room.It was an attempt to have a kind of commercial mega-rave à la Mayday, Energy etc in France. It was pretty boring...but @ 6 AM, awesome doomtrooper Manu Le Malin taked control of the room. He started with that "Nowhere" track in this huge cold area. In 5 minutes, half of the crowd leaved in panic and the other half experienced one of the most amazing dark hardcore techno set I've ever seen (and i've seen to much dark hardcore techo sets for my own good).

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/manu+le+malin+metropole/video/x4ifo9_metropole-techno-98-manu-le-malin_music

Sam Davies said...

Hi Simon,
Yeah, he definitely meant a rant in favour, not against... The way Mark N writes about 'Nowhere' has such a black metal inflection to it.
Latest Anon, thanks for the link, pretty amazing - wish there were some crowd reaction shots... Chainsaw through ice, not a bad analogy for some of the doomcore sound.

SIMON REYNOLDS said...

so that's "Nowhere" playing at the start of that video?

how cool, how Cold Rushy, to have a guy doing an ice sculpture with a chainshaw!

and gaunt-faced Manu with his Slave to the Rave cap!

did that actually broadcast that on French TV then?

i've seen him deejay at least once, maybe twice, he really is a great doomtrooper on the decks

Anonymous said...

Yeah that's "Nowhere" opening the set. It was broadcasted on french TV but not live, and as you can see just a glance of MLM's set...it was much longer for the others djs/live acts (Westbam, Moby, Sven Vath, Carl Cox, Wink and CJ Bolland-but-not-in-its-great-R&S-phase).

I agree MLM is awesome. Check his mixed CD "Biomechanik II" if you haven't heard it. First half is pure gloomcore and PCP-like gems.

arioch (of "rant" post) said...

oups, sorry for "rant", i'm french and sometimes make that kind of mistakes (and i don't seem to be the only one french making comments). i agree with the previous post about manu le malin : he's an awesome dj and has produced some good tracks with dr macabre ("the hunter" and "first wave" on IST records)