So I figure this guy is probably big enough in ambient music to deserve his own thread. He is pretty much the Brian Eno of dark ambient/industrial ambient after all.

I'm listening to his latest right now, The Word as Power, and liking it. I tend to dislike his collaborative albums but this one is pretty nifty. Though I am amused to see him reusing that vocal line from Metavoid again, this is like the 3rd or 4th album with it. Huge, spacious production job as usual.


So what are your favorites? General thoughts? Anyone here seen him live?

One of my biggest inspirations!!

Paradise Disowned and Heresy are his all time classics. For some reason, many people hated Metavoid due to it being more melodic, symphonic, and cinematic, therefore more accessible than his other albums, but I still loved it!!

Still haven't seen him live, but one of these days......

Metavoid was different but still great, there's a few real gems on there. Honestly, in terms of "different" Lustmord albums I think Juggernaut is probably the worst, and in any event it is my least favorite Lustmord album. It fails where Other succeeds. My favorite has to be Carbon/Core and after that I can't decide between Heresy and The Place Where the Black Stars Hang.


I mean he just started playing live on a regular basis within the last few years, so there haven't been that many opportunities.

Yeah, I'm a fan of Lustmord. He's got a style that he pounds to death but still enough to keep me interested. I've not heard his latest, but I've enjoyed The Place Where The Black Stars Hang, The Dark Places of the Earth, Metavoid, Zoetrope and Strange Attractor/Black Star....Some good collaborations are Law of the Battle Of Conquest (with Hecate) Pigs of the Roman Empire (Melvins) and probably the best, Stalker with Robert Rich. Lustmord is, for me at least, one of the better dark ambient artists.

You should really check out Stalker by him and Robert Rich (and Robert Rich's album "Below Zero" too, while you're at it). Some of the most calming yet also paradoxically unsettling dark ambient I've ever heard.

But no, his favourite album of mine has to be Other. It's a shame it doesn't gain as much recognition as his other works.

http://grooveshark.com/#!/search?q=lust ... e+aversion

Honestly, at first glance I thought you were talking about the host of NBC Nightly News at first...I'm like, "I didn't know he was into music!". Lol.

I should really check out more of his stuff. Arecibo is a favorite of mine:

Lustmord is good. I think he gets a bit overhyped and some of his albums aren't as good as people would like to make them out to be, but he's released several awesome classics and is undeniably a very influential figure in dark ambient history. Releases like Heresy and The Place Where the Black Stars Hang will probably always be regarded as classics of one stripe or another. As was mentioned before, Stalker is pretty much a masterpiece of abstract music. Kinda lost touch with his work a while back and haven't checked out a whole lot of the newer stuff, but maybe I will due to this thread. The Dark Places of the Earth was pretty cool, if I recall correctly. Desolate and brooding stuff.

I would say that Robert Rich's music is much more interesting then Lustmords, mainly due to his diversity. He does make some dark ambient but I really like his more organic productions. Calling Down The Sky is really haunting and mystical, Echo of Small Things is pretty weird and charming and Bestiary is plain trippy. The first I mentioned (Calling Down...) is one of the best ambient albums I've heard and I highly reccomend it to ay fan of the genre.

Didn't Robert Rich do some kind of weird "sleep concert" where he basically played all night while the audience basically just grabbed their sleeping bags and camped out at the venue??

Kinda reminds me of this one electro-acoustic music festival I went to in Kobe earlier this year......

^Yeah, check out this if you have, say, a spare 7 hours




I saw Robert Rich in a totally different context (an outdoor bush party) and it was a powerful experience. Would advise anyone to check him out life if you get a chance...

Eh, even by ambient standards I think Stalker is too damn abstract. I've listened to it many times, it was the first Lustmord collaboration I listened to. I've never been able to get into it. It's like the ultimate example of background music for me, pretty much impossible to focus on and easy to ignore. It doesn't "grab me." Which is odd, because both Lustmord and Rich are great by themselves. Other was his only good collaboration up until his newest The Word as Power, in my opinion, at least among the ones I've heard. The obvious collaborative elements better complement and contrast his style on that album.


Also, as a side note, I know rexxz has pointed this out to me before, but: does anyone else think the repeating distortion sound on Carbon/Core sounds like an altered version of the grunt growls from Quake 1? It seriously sounds like he took the sound the grunts make when they're just standing around waiting and elongated it.

This will forever be my perception of that sound. Until I see otherwise, it's Quake god damnit.

The Place Where The Black Stars Hang is one of my favourite dark ambient albums, nice and brooding but also chilled out.

Found another one, sort of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY1kSNn0qI0

http://www.last.fm/music/Lustmord/_/Beckoning

It's not bad but I just don't dig this music fully... not enough going on and it sounds empty and unfinished somehow. Plus, the title "The Place Where The Black Stars Hang" always makes me laugh... I just picture Jamie Foxx, Will Smith and Dave Chappelle sitting around on a big comfy couch smoking weed every time I look at the CD.

It took me a minute to get that...

Yes, love a bit o' Lustmord. I think "...Black Stars..." was my introduction to not only him, but dark ambient as a genre. I find it makes the perfect soundtrack to a book, particularly the kind of dark stuff I enjoy. There's nothing by him that I've actively disliked, but Black Stars, Carbon/Core, Monstrous Soul, Heresy... it's all good.

Those looking to explore further could try Biosphere, Thomas Koner, Stars Of The Lid, Atomine Elektrine, Bad Sector, Sleep Research Facility... Enough for now.

Biosphere is definitely my favorite modern ambient artist... the pioneering ambient works from Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, Cluster etc have always been my favorites though. Watch out though; alot of those guys who were brilliant in the 70s sold out and started making new age music in the 80s.

For some reason I've never been able to really get into Biosphere. To the extent that "polar ambient" is a genre at all, I guess I prefer Thomas Köner, though he sometimes isn't dynamic enough for me. I would put Deep Frieze by Sleep Research Facility as my favorite "polar ambient" album. Those first two tracks pretty much completely encapsulate what I feel like during a winter storm (before I have to start shoveling anyway ).


Does anyone know what Lustmord's role in SPK was back in the day?