Music that slowly increases in intensity until you almost can't even stand the intensity anymore

It's one simple trick that, on the rare occasion I encounter it, never fails to give me chills: pieces of music that incrementally progress from restraint to varying degrees of intensity, often incorporating the addition of layer upon layer of instrumentation. I love it so much.

Three examples I can think of off the top of my head:

Shiina Ringo x Neko Saito - 'Yokushitsu'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSmA0qzEQvg

Elliott Smith - 'Can't Make a Sound'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke2NTnkp1tE

Dirty Three - 'I Remember a Time When Once You Used to Love Me'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2xprLZAVbk

It's also kinda reflective of the structure of Stop Making Sense, progressing from Byrne alone onstage with a boombox and a guitar to a huge and joyful panoply of players.

Give me more of these things. Please.

not sure if this is what you mean but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KziGRbyPoMs

There's *a lot* of these. Do you prefer music of the poppier sort? Or do SY's Washing Machine and Mogwai's Mogwai Fear Satan also count?

or also "sit tight" by carina round which is similar but not

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeltDmQiIQI

Also see: post-rock. But not sure if that's what you're after.

ROVO are the band that comes to mind here, I think most of their discography is like that, slow builds that keep speeding up and making you wonder whose endurance is going to give up first

apologies for linking a 43 minute tune here but I think this is a great example. you don't have to listen to it all but keep skipping around and you'll see what I mean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0tGLwrCL4g

"Aggrandizement" by Deluge Grander is another one that makes you wonder "how much longer is this going to go on??"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsi8Iy7Zah8&list=PLEEJeDgWvBK-TnsOlL9mviUhbstdx8hgg&index=4

I was looking for a thread like this the other day when I heard the B-side of this Pinkwash single. Can't find it online, but on the 45, the end of "Skin" sounds like whoever was mastering or cutting the vinyl very gradually made it hotter and hotter until it just gets completely distorted. It's just this one heavy hypnotic groove that steadily increases in volume for maybe a minute. It was thrilling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E98J0ZEaIjs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RkcLsIKl2Q

(One of my all time faves. Gutted this isn't even on YT in one piece smdh)

Cave's entire output

also,"Life Goes Off," the last song on Jim O'Rourke's Insignificance. He said that it's a reference to the end of the movie Greaser's Palace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnw7-YfSaQg

^^ great example

Yes, 'Life Goes Off' is another I'm familiar with that definitely fits this pattern. Feel like there are more O'Rourke tunes that do similar things. Something by Brice Glace? Another something by Gastr Del Sol?

You will need proper bass to appreciate these but this is basically the raison d'etre for a good chunk of techno.

Jaydee - "Plastic Dreams" (the build to the solo, and then the journey that solo goes on...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwPKi1H8t9M

Speedy J - "Pull Over" (this is about the ever-shifting drum pattern)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHsNQlboq-8

Exposure - "Peak Experience" (this is about filters and layering and delaying the drop until you go insane)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J6O55zGWug

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gj2MCf2G80

The Beatles - I Want You (She's So Heavy)!

Naked City, "Leng Tch'e"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDP19Vieg7k

"Research into the relationship between violence and the sacred led Zorn to the writings of Georges Bataille. The historical photographs used in Leng Tch'e (found in Tears of Eros) were taken circa 1905 in Beijing to document the last public execution utilizing leng tch'e (hundred pieces) which dates from the Manchu dynasty. Given opium to extend the victim's life during the arduous process, the look of ecstasy on the man's face haunted Bataille:"

I Want You is another great example, I love the tension of waiting for it all to just stop. It still catches me off guard.

Oasis - All Around The World

Real answer: Autechre - Cap.iv

Nah they're both real answers ;)

From.the milieu of art-rock though....I got loads of examples. Post 'em as and when I decide they're good enough

Poni Hoax - 'Budapest'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6xG0fspuhc

Vitalic - 'La Rock 01'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGOaXphpT7w

this is pretty much all zeuhl. and heldon. and "the talking drum" by king crimson.

also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl-p3t6-tbo

kc - talking drum

Esben and the Witch have become very very good at this with their last two albums

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAWmOoVJvIU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPnDO4gJk84

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7LQ9We7Tyc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Py9ihtc5ZI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQZfGa5t4e8

Zero 7 - 'Your Place'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyaRtMo4zdU

bonnie tyler - total eclipse of the heart

deep purple - child of light

child in time i mean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyRFAw5La38

The closing 8-10 minutes of Bill Dixon's 17 Musicians In Search of a Sound: Darfur are like this.

I don't think 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)' fits here... I don't get any sense of "builds to the point of no return" from that track, as great as it is.

It may be corny as hell to say so, but if "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is eligible, why not "In the Air Tonight"?

Or "Shock the Monkey"?

'In The Air Tonight' is more of a "lulls you in a false sense of security before punching you in the face" track.

Fair enough. "King of Birds," "Prayers for Rain..."

really Turrican? I feel like that song is one of the archetypes of this kind of thing, at least in pop/rock, as they bring in the white noise louder and louder until you can barely hear the guitars anymore, and then everything just stops cold.

This is the one I've seen stop rooms full of people talking - the bit from about 5.30 onwards at least, don't know if it really works without the long buildup though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssMKD-zrjw4

Ravel's Bolero is the archetype, right?

jim orourke - happy days

I love the main theme from the Last Emperor soundrack, where there are some understated drums, then a pretty ostinato on tuned percussion, then a violin comes in bein all lyrical n shit, then here come some cymbal swells... As you focus on each layer, one sometimes forgets that all the original patterns are still there, plinking away.

https://youtu.be/cXUMB19WkT8

Roy Orbison - Running Scared

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6GYCrEoTPQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPukZ0IDkAo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQcE4_7-X78

Eric prydz - opus (four tet remix). Now that's a song that builds in intensity.

Radiohead - How to disappear completely

find the loudest way to listen this you can. sit back and let the feral madness rise within you. don't think you necessarily need to like techno - this is more like the soundtrack to ancient humans discovering fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d64-DBuVKH0

Isn't this a standard thing with Glenn Branca symphonies? & therefore presumably most of the artists he's directly influenced.

Was also thinking of the Swans live version of Sex God Sex from Feel Good Now and other live sets from around the same period. Feel Good Now version is about 20 minutes long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrBoQLkZY2g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd_36U7gfys

Beatles - "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" the use of ever-increasing moog white noise is very cool. the intensity of the sound builds and builds and then is cut off. the cut to immediate soft and sunny intro of "Here Comes the Sun" puts an emphasis on the change in moods that is very pleasing. the whole song build up and then breaks like the sun through a cloud. the Beatles had been incorporating Yoko Ono's ideas for a year now and it's cool to hear her influence across Abbey Road.

Bonzo Dog Dooh Dah Band - "The Intro and the Outro" made to seem like every bar a new instrument is introduced, building up the sound layer by layer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfR6_V91fG8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_pDwv3tpug

Beatles - "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" the use of ever-increasing moog white noise is very cool. the intensity of the sound builds and builds and then is cut off. the cut to immediate soft and sunny intro of "Here Comes the Sun" puts an emphasis on the change in moods that is very pleasing.

Except from 1969 to 1987, there was no immediate cut to "Here Comes The Sun." It was, "Hey, I think there's something wrong with your turntable; it cut off the end of that song."

(That's what I assumed for years until I heard the CD, as my parents' turntable had a tendency to automatically lift the tone arm a half second or so before the end of a side.)

Isn't this a standard thing with Glenn Branca symphonies? & therefore presumably most of the artists he's directly influenced.

Indeed.

which draws a lot on minimalism -- it's kinda their m.o.

the last ≈ 45 minutes of Xela's album In bocca al lupo progresses from soothing dark ambient to noize/drone through the gradual introduction of white noise/electronics/tribal drums/damned souls in hell

(and it isn't half as corny as my description suggests)

sorry folks, but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbmwERlUYRE

then there's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3ceW4bimyA

but also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbxp3qt9LEc

haha but really let's focus on what's required

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8pZy5PmIoU

and have a few more idk there are so many this is just a small taste

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPq4WhPir9w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf0VntRIg1o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiITP-zP-98

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFdcf_XUAKM

^^^you get a cool arty video with this one!

Never apologize for constructive contributions.

Ulrich Schnauss - Medusa

otm! I listened to that song tonight as I navigated the final stretch of a traffic jam, and I half expected to emerge into a wasteland of sinkholes and lava flows and Sim City monsters

(but it turned out to be a paving crew, and the choral outro just made me feel sheepish..."sorry Herr Schnauss don't you think that's a little too on the nose?" etc.)

i haven't listened to this song in forever, but,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMmXU-K3d3k

(it sounds a lot better in the context of the album)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFK1wKyuI_8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZsfRZovsJc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlhK1D-8o2g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2dSlKdhBkg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHm_h39jMis

^ great example

Man, how did I forget to include 'River Deep, Mountain High'? And, to an extent, Lorraine Ellison's 'Stay With Me'?

(Listening to some '66 jams this afternoon, obvs.)

Otis Redding's Try a Little Tenderness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxKE-wPySGc

bedhead- parade
low - days of..
slowcore is good for this. lots of codeine fits the bill but i'd have to pull the cd's out

Serena-Maneesh - 'Your Blood in Mine'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00TI8Q3ksT4

excellent shout

grieg, "in der halle des bergkönigs"

East 17 - Stay Another Day

The classic Romanian answer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W395ryBuqg

gene pitney, "i'm gonna be strong"

Minimalism-wise, Philip Glass "The Grid" from Koyaanisqatsi, especially in the context of the movie.

Thomas Dolby 'Hyperactive (Heavy Breather SubVersion)' 12" mix, which comes to a crashing end instead of (what was he thinking?) fading out like it does on the album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meFGiIp4C3Q

SPK "Wars of Islam" (which is crazy intense from the start, so what's left to do but the "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" turn-up-the-noise-and-cut-the-tape trick)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJuKDlqCFJU

Equinox - Acid Rain (Breakage remix)

Eyvind Kang - Invisus Natalis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBfhkrSOLtM

Portishead - The Rip

That Eyvind track was immense.