Big, Beautiful, Dark and Scary

I’m listening to this right fucking now:

Bang on a can all stars big beautiful dark scary

More pictures of the CD set here.

The relentless title track reminds me a bit of Górecki’s Harpsichord Concerto. The second track “Sunray” is much mellower. Stirring stuff, and recommended – though too much going on for background gaming music.

More Big, Dark and Scary music I like to run games to includes Svartsinn’s Elegies for the End.

Elegies for the End

The Cyclic Law label produces a range of industrial/ambient drones from Gustaf Hildebrand, Northaunt and New Risen Throne. While I like all of that sparse, desolate ambient stuff it does all sound a bit same-y.

Slightly more melodic, I’m a big fan of Tom Heasley.

Heasley

No, really, ambient tuba. Seriously, it’s beautiful.

Robert Rich gets marked as a New Age artist generally, though a lot of his stuff is quite dark. I like Below Zero and the collaboration with Lustmord, Stalker:

Stalker

Finally I’ve been listening to a lot of Solar Fields lately. He did the soundtrack to the very flawed but awesome Mirror’s Edge. His music ranges from trance to downtempo/ambient. My favourite is probably Until We Meet The Sky:

Until

Would be a great fit with an Eclipse Phase campaign.

All of these are available through Emusic or other distributors.