Sturgeon's Law: never forget it

An interesting thread has arisen on the Violent Playground industrial music forums concerning “industrial music for stupid people”: the question originally asked was what could constitute an example of particularly stupid industrial music, aimed at the lowest common denominator? This quickly turned into a fascinating, horrifying and hilarious sequence of Youtube links to the some of the worst music (and videos, in the case of Blutengel) you’re likely to come across. This got me thinking about one of my most important concepts I believe in: Sturgeon’s Law.

Theodore Sturgeon was a science fiction writer from back in the Golden Age, who got sick of defending his genre from claims that it contained a lot of crap. So he came up with the brilliantly simple Sturgeon’s Law (originally known as Sturgeon’s Revelation):

“Ninety percent of everything is crap”.

Say it to yourself: ninety percent of everything is crap. Say it again: ninety percent of everything is crap. Everything. No exceptions. Sturgeon’s position was not to deny the claim, but remind us that it can be applied everywhere. So sure, ninety percent of science fiction is crap. Ninety percent of Broadway musicals are crap. Ninety percent of detective fiction is crap. Ninety percent of hip hop is crap. Ninety percent of action movies are crap. Ninety percent of drama movies are crap. Ninety percent of EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD is crap.

If you’re half as crazy about industrial music as I am, part of you is probably squirming at this point. “But… but… surely you don't also mean industrial music. I mean, some genres of music are just better! Almost all of the music in my collection is awesome!”. Sure, but that’s not a representative sample. You’ve gone out and picked the top 10% (with maybe a few stinkers that have crept in here and there). You want a representative sample? My suggestion is to go pick some random industrial / darkwave compilation disc, something like a Zillo Festival Sampler or similar (which Germany seems to produce about 900 million of per month), and have a listen. Crap, after crap, after crap. I should know, I used to write CD reviews for a gothic culture magazine, and would get dozens of these things. There would be one, or if you’re very lucky two, good songs on a CD. Out of 12 or so tracks, it would average out to about 10% good tracks, meaning the 90% remainder is… crap.

Sturgeon’s Law is an important law to remember, especially about the music you love. Accept that most of it is crap, and remember that it lives everywhere else too. And of course, the important corollary, 10% of it is good.

Dark Ambient mix and commentary

I’ve recently posted a mix of dark ambient music to my mixcloud (which you can listen to here). Here is a tracklist with commentary on what I selected, the album and label it is from, and why it was chosen.

1. In Slaughter Natives: Pure.. the suffering (from Purgate My Stain, Cold Meat Industry, 1996). This is the first track from one of my favourite albums, by the legendary In Slaughter Natives. While there are better tracks on Purgate My Stain, I think this works well as an introduction track, on the album and on this mix.

2. Lustmord: Main Title – Infinite Space (from Zoetrope, Nextera, 2002). Lustmord invented the damn genre so including him is a no-brainer. This is from a soundtrack he did for some weird movie. It’s not his most famous album but I love it dearly; the engineering quality on this track is quite ridiculous. Very menacing and beautifully dark.

3. Inade: Disconnecting States (from The Crackling of the Anonymous, Loki Foundation, 2001). Inade are bloody legends. This is a killer track from my favourite album of theirs. Dark space ambient at its finest; it works as a (slightly) lighter bridge between the intensely dark Lustmord and Camanecroszcope tracks.

4. Camanecroszscope: For all things now dead and gone (from Echoes ov a Beckoning Arcanum, Spectre, 2006). This act is a collaboration between Belgian tribal / industrial band Ah Cama Sotz and Canadian power noise legend Iszoloscope, who we’ll be hearing more from later. They put out two albums and both are staggeringly good. This for my money is one of the most menacing dark ambient tracks ever recorded.

5. Raison D’etre: End of a cycle (from The Empty Hollow Unfolds, Cold Meat Industry, 2000). Including a Raison D’etre track in a dark ambient mix is pretty much mandatory, considering he is the most prolific and popular artist in the genre, and while he’s repeated himself a fair bit, much of his music is still great. This is a killer track from what I think is his best album by far.

6. Collapsar: Passing the Gate (from Beyond the Event Horizon, Malignant Records, 2009). Probably the most obscure track in this mix, Collapsar are a recent signing to Malignant Records with just one album out, but it is quite impressive. Deep dark space drone ambient, executed very well.

7. RAAN: Sandrin (from The Nacrasti, Malignant Records, 2001). Another classic from Malignant Records. RAAN sadly only ever did this one release: I would die a happy man if they ever put out another one. Every single track on it is superb; picking one was very hard. I used this one because it is actually a bit lighter and cheerier, and creates a nice contrast to the horrible maddening despair of the next track…

8. Yen Pox: Blood from the Heavens (from New Dark Age, Malignant Records, 2000). I put this album at #3 on my top 10 dark ambient albums ever, and for good reason. While not as intense as the earlier tracks in this mix, there is a subtle and sinister power in this track that I love. True, classic dark ambient, at its very, very best.

9. Iszoloscope: Iszoloscope Tomes Deux (from Au Seuil Du Neant, Ant-Zen, 2003). Iszoloscope is known for power noise; in fact, he’s probably the best power noise artist still active in the world. The fact that he threw in this staggeringly good dark ambient track at the end of his classic 2003 album makes you realise how talented this man is. Chillingly sad and beautiful. It was a tough call whether to end the mix with this track or the next one.

10. Desiderii Marginis: Beyond Retrieval (from Deadbeat, Cold Meat Industry, 2001). Deadbeat is simply one of the best dark ambient albums ever recorded, from back in the day when Cold Meat Industry really dominated this style of music. The quality here speaks for itself. While this track doesn’t depart from any of the classic Swedish dark ambient tropes, it executes them better than anyone in the genre, bar none.

Top 10 underrated industrial albums

OK here's my top 10 list of the most underrated industrial albums, EVAR!

10. Pierrepoint: Technoid Beats for a Paradox Movement

Pierrepoint were a pretty ordinary EBM band who’d put out some nondescript albums that nobody much cared about. Then they did a live performance at the yearly Wave Gotik Treffen mega-festival in Germany that astounded everybody. Fortunately it was recorded and released. This is a sinister bastard child of industrial and techno (proper techno, not some stupid Big Beat or Hard House crap), and it absolutely rocks. A pretty limited release (777 copies I believe) that sadly disappeared (along with Pierrepoint’s career). Definitely worth checking out, especially the amazing opening track (though the album works so well as a whole because every track flows into the next).

9. Scrap.Edx: Non-linear interfacing

This album has now made it into two of my top 10 lists, which tells you how good it is. I already raved about it in my top 10 power noisealbums ever, and there’s not much more to say about it here, other than it is awesome, and much better than 90% of the stuff that the big power noise labels (Ant-Zen and Hands) have put out in the last 5 years.

8. Front Line Assembly: State of mind

It might seem strange to put one of the most famous industrial bands in a list of underrated albums, but this is probably their most obscure album (one of their oldest, but not quite), and is actually still my favourite of theirs. I’m not one of those snooty analogue “it has to sound low-fi to be truuu and kuuuullt” wankers, but there really is a dark, raw and under-produced power on this album which you just can’t get anywhere else in their huge discography (though you get very close to it on Caustic Grip). Classic stuff and holds up so well after decades.

7. FAV: Feinde auf Valium

FAV (which I believe stands for Feinde Auf Valium, making this really a self-titled debut album) put out a couple of albums; the second is similar to this but not as good. FAV does really fun noisy industrial music, with a very strong punk flavour, that works brilliantly. Some really fast tracks, some slower ones, but very little weak material here. I really wish he’d put out more albums as there was some genuine talent here that was largely overlooked.

6. Meson: The Flooding of Desolate Canyons

OK now we’re getting into the very obscure stuff. I just god damn love this album so much. It’s very difficult to describe; kind of ambient, but nothing like dark ambient; kind of noisy, but nothing like power noise. It’s very robotic, yet almost completely arhythmical. I used a lot of this album in my Reign of Steel post-apocalyptic industrial mix; I can think of no finer soundtrack to a radioactive wasteland populated by starving lunatics and killer robots.

5. Ultra Untied: Ultra Audience

This band only put out one album. I know nothing about them whatsoever. I barely know how to describe any of this music, let alone put it in a box or style. It’s kind of ambient, kind of dreamy, kind of experimental, but not really… I don’t know, it’s just amazing.

4. Amgod: Half rotting and decayed

This act is a little better known than most of the others on this list, and has a small cult following, but have been accorded nowhere near the respect they should have. This album was released in 1994, just two years after Solitary Confinement, and while it borrows a lot from that landmark album (who in the dark EBM genre hasn’t?), it’s very nearly as good, certainly one of the darkest EBM albums ever made, and largely unknown. This album is long out of print, but I was very lucky to be randomly given a copy by Bones from Novakill. Amgod has recently returned and sadly put out some very underwhelming material. The highlight track of the album is certainly Overlove.

3. Savak: Four hundred forty four days

Like many great albums, this is one I would have no idea what style to call it. At times ambient, at times power noise, but most of the time just industrial (whatever that means). It has a relentless, hypnotic power to it that is extremely difficult to describe and even harder to emulate. Unique, insane and brilliant. (If you’re wondering, the title is a reference to the Iranian hostage crisis of 1987 - 1981).

2. Calva Y Nada: Monologue eines Baumes

One of my favourite albums EVAR, this is another one that fits into no genre. Calva Y Nada got my attention a long time ago when I heard their track Der Sturm on the Moonraker compilation, one of the first industrial releases I bought. This is a very strange, dark and deranged album, lurching from one style and tempo to another, one minute subtle and creepy, the next thundering and menacing, but always interesting and powerful. Really, dreadfully underrated.

1. Maison Close: Maison Close

This album is completely fucking insane, brilliant and terrifying, and will make your head explode. Another one like Ultra United where they only ever put out this one release, no one knows anything about them, no one heard it or bought it, and it is totally fucking amazing. Try listening to it all the way through in the dark on headphones; you will not emerge unchanged.

Club Berserk - setlist from March 22nd

Well I had a fantastic time at Berserk on Saturday night! Stay tuned for more news about future Club Berserk events... here is the tracklisting of the set I played. Since we had a pretty big psytrance contingent turn up to see the dark psy DJs, I mixed a bit of psytrance into a pretty hard industrial set, and it worked well! Hocico's "Born to be hated" hit the floor like an atom bomb, and is becoming my favourite aggrotech track of all time. I think I'm going to record this mix at home and put it on mixcloud, for those who couldn't make it on Friday night!

Mindless Faith: Canaan (great first track of their great Momentum album)
This Morn Omina: (The) Ruach (Of God) (just incredible work from This Morn Omina as always; the first I've played this track and it got a great response)
Suicide Commando: Hate me (what can I say? Johan brings the noise. And the hate. Love it.)
Twisted System: Stark Raver (Star Wars meets psytrance at last! A bit cheesy but nice to drop in something fun during a pretty heave industrial set)
Dark Soho: Dark Moon on Stonehenge (a great classic of dark psytrance, with a strong industrial feel from the drums and guitars)
Shiv-R: Three Blind Mice (One of my favourite tracks from this awesome Australian band)
Distorted Memory: God's Wrath (Pure brutal aggrotech, in its purest and most hate-filled form)
Shift: Infra-red (nice hard psytrance track from this South African artist)
Implant: Violence (MIZUH remix) (Completely killer remix here)
Xenomorph: Tree of Death (very dark and industrial-influenced psytrance)
Dulce Liquido: Psicosis (one of my all time favourite club tracks, this has been packing dancefloors since 2001)
Hocico: Born to be hated (just awesome; Hocico prove why they're the best aggrotech band on the planet)
NCC: Weiteck (trace) (an oldie but a goodie... brings me back memories of the Vortex days of yore!)

Shameless self-promotion - Club Berserk returns!

Just a bit of quick shameless self-promotion... my nightclub event Berserk is returning! Friday 22nd March will see a special Berserk night at the Phoenix Bar in Sydney. Check out the facebook event or the website below... hope to see you there!
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/415546675203654/
Website: berserk.cranialfracture.org

Top 10 Dark Ambient albums of all time

Since I love so much dark ambient music, this was a very difficult list for me to choose. On another day, the order could swap around a bit (with the exception of the number 1 album, which I really think is just the best).

10. Inade: The Incarnation of the Solar Architects (Loki Foundation, 2009). This is a recent-ish release by German legends Inade, and its a monster. Not the darkest of ambients, but just massive; it brings to mind colossal alien constructs floating through space. The production quality on this album is jawdropping (some of the best I've ever heard in any genre of music), and if it had a bit more darkness and depth, it would be even higher on this list.
9. Camanecroszcope II: Echoes of a Beckoning Arcanum (Spectre, 2006). This project is a wonderful collaboration between power noise legend Iszoloscope and cult Tribal / experimental artist Ah Cama Sotz. Together they make a formidable combination that has so far released two incredibly good dark ambient albums. This is the second and I think the best. It has a very cold and alien atmosphere, that invokes images of exploring tombs of long-lost civilizations on Mars. Best listened to at night.
8. Lustmord: Zoetrope (Nextera, 2002). Lustmord pretty much invented dark ambient with his 1990 album Heresy, but has since put out many works since then, and better works. This 2002 album is a soundtrack to some experimental movie; I don't know much about that, but I do know that this album is just stunning, and a great introduction to the darker end of dark ambient. Truly creepy stuff and one of the best albums from the legendary artist.
7. RAAN: The Nacrasti (Malignant Antibody, 2001). This is a criminally underrated album, put out by the odd Malignant Records sub-label, Malignant Antibody. RAAN sadly only ever did this one album, and it is a masterpiece of the genre. It has many moments that equal the power and presence of the best drone artists such as Terra Sancta, but has so much more variation, including some beautiful meditative moments and some almost tribal passages. This is one you have to listen to from beginning to end in one go. Essential and sadly overlooked.
6. Inade: The Crackling of the Anonymous (Loki Foundation, 2001). German act Inade are up there with Lustmord and Raison D'etre as the most respected artists in this genre. While many immediately think of Alderebran as the definitive Inade album, it's this one for me. Classic dark, creepy space ambient, as only Inade can do it. Possibly the darkest album on this list.
5. Lustmord: The place where the black stars hang (Side Effects, 1994). This is an older album of Lustmord's from the 90s, and is just amazing. This CD includes the longest track in my entire music collection, clocking in at over 70 minutes long (don't worry, it's nowhere near the longest track ever made; Robert Rich has that record sewn up, its over 7 hours long). The greatest strength of this album is its subtlety; it's an immensely slow journey through hypnotic yet barely noticeable sounds, culminating in an encounter in very darkest, deepest space.
4. Raison D'etre: The Empty Hollow Unfolds (Cold Meat Industry, 2000). Swedish solo act Raison D'etre is probably the biggest name in dark ambient and has put out many albums, some amazing and some not so. I think this is certainly his best. The first half is probably the most pure and perfect example of the classic Swedish style that Cold Meat Industry is known for, and what I would point someone to who asked me "what does dark ambient sound like?". The later parts of the album are where Peter Andersson pushes the boundaries and breaks the usual Raison D'etre formula, with excellent results. Top Shelf, and one of Cold Meat's proudest moments.

3. Yen Pox: New Dark Age (Malignant Records, 2000). This is pure, pure dark drone ambient, at its very best. Music that hisses and flows out of your speakers and surrounds you in a suffocating fog of nightmares and despair. This album made me really sit up and pay attention to this genre of music. The artwork and mastering are simply perfect. Malignant Records = quality.

2. Desiderii Marginis: Deadbeat (Cold Meat Industry, 2001). One of my very favourite albums of all time; one of those albums which you know you'll listen to in 10 or even 20 years, and still enjoy as much as you do today. Desiderii Marginis' second album, and best album (his later ones are perfectly good but not anywhere near this). Saying this album is classic Swedish dark ambient is the most banal of understatements. The last two tracks take me away to places very far away.
1. Yen Pox and Troum: Mnemonic Induction (Malignant Records, 2002). I don't even know what to say about this album. You take the ultra dark drone ambient of Yen Pox, mix it with the experimental ambient soundscapes of Troum, and you get this block of madness, beauty and utter brilliance. Trying to describe it is futile. Listen to it on good headphones or very good speakers and be amazed.

And just for clarification, my definition of dark ambient here does *not* include neo-classical / folk / ethereal stuff like Arcana (who would be all over this list like a rash, if it did), or death industrial stuff like Brighter Death Now or Megaptera (again, like a rash, a big red rash), or whatever it is you call In Slaughter Natives (again with the rash), you get the idea. Just dark ambient. Also, quick rundown on albums that almost but didn't quite make the list: Deutsch Nepal's "Benevolence", Combative Alignment's "Ritez of Higher Communication", Raison D'etre's "In Sadness, Silence and Solitude".

Power Noise mix

OK I've uploaded a mix of Power Noise / Rhythmic Noise at Mixcloud, as the next in my series of "pure" mixes of industrial styles. I had a lot of fun and I think it really works as a mix. If you haven't heard it yet, check it out:
http://www.mixcloud.com/leontranter/pure-power-noise-industrial-dance-mix/
Here are some notes about what tracks I chose and why.

Synapscape: Thirsteater. Synapscape are a great band with many good releases under their belt (and they're still going strong after many years in the business). This is off an older album of theirs, Positive Pop, and it's a killer.
ESA: Absolute Fury (in its very fabric). I'm really impressed by ESA and the variety of sounds he produces. This is a solid track with some nice vocals (which you don't often get in power noise) off the Sea and the Silence album, released on the always excellent Tympanik Audio.
Manufactura: Killing You. This is a really nice, strong, aggressive track from controversial artist Manufactura. It's packed full of great samples from the movie "Pi", has crazy heavy beats, and just kicks the crap out of anything. Freaky trivia: this track is from the first Manufactura album Regression, which was released by Auricle Media, a label started by Scott Sturgis aka Converter!
PAL: Bang your box. PAL is one of the legends of the Ant-Zen power noise movement and is hard not to include, even if I find a lot of his albums to be inconsistent in quality. This is a classic track however, with a great rolling momentum.
Asche: Distorted DJ Part 2. I love the album this track comes from (Distorted DJ), but it was hard to pick a track from it, because the whole thing flows together, from beginning to end. This is probably the best track though, and it fits pretty well here in the mix.
Scrap.edx: Bleeder Current. Scrap.Edx are great and their first album, Non-Linear Interfacing (released on the sadly defunct DTA Records), is one of the most underrated noise albums ever. This track is one of many wonderful tracks on that album (more recent works are solid but not quite as good).
Punch Inc: You My God. This is a bad-arse rhythmic noise track from bad-arse German rhythmic noise band Punch Inc, from their first album, Rush Hour. Great stuff. Bonus points to anyone who knows where the sample ("You think you can fight god") is from and can tell me!
5F-X: i=i1+i2+i3+i4+...iN. This track is just mental, and that's fitting since it is from the completely crazy German band 5F-X (a split-off from the even crazier German band 5F_55, whose track names are in hexadecimal code). One of my all time favourites.
Xotox: Degeneration. This track doesn't have a huge amount of depth or complexity to it, but it has a really nice sense of anticipation and momentum that I really like. I feel it works well as a build-up to the next three tracks, which is where things really go nuts. These final three artists are the greatest in all of power noise.
Iszoloscope: Le Demoninateur Common. Iszoloscope is the best power noise artist currently active, for my money. All of his music is amazing, but this track is from his best album, the 2003 masterpiece Au Seuil du Neant. Just amazing.
Imminent Starvation: Tentack one. Probably the best power noise track ever made; this is a musical juggernaut that destroys everything in its path. Listening this track changed my life.
Converter: Stand Beside Him (power). Converter is really the god of this genre; he's quit making music under this name sadly, and many of my favourite tracks of his are actually the more ambient or down-tempo ones. But this is a good noisy stompy example of Scott Sturgis' genius.

Coming up next: Dark Ambient mix! Holy crap, I better learn how to keymix, quick!!