research into Ethereal Goth and Dreampop (and other stuff for fans of early 4AD and Projekt)

These guys, Oake, are more on the dark and electronic side of things (somewhere between Succour-era Seefeel and the stuff from the Chasing Voices thread), but I figured someone else might dig this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=370XllR0yBQ

I tend to think of BTFABG as a band that came after all the famous goth bands died down a bit. But I always have to remind myself that they started in 1986 but it's hard for me to picture their three 80s albums coming out at the same time as everything else that happened at that time (not that I'm disputing it).
I just think of all that stuff (including earliest Lycia and This Ascension) is hard to place in that time. It always feels to me like it was all happening in a separate world (that they weren't popular in either). I guess that might be a part of the appeal. Same goes for a lot of goth, industrial and oddball bands.

It has been written that David Lynch was a fan of BTFABG. In the unlikely event I ever meet him, that's the first thing I'll ask. I should have went to that Q&A years ago.

Certainly the only reason I checked BTFABG out in the early 90s is that 4AD's focus shifted from annual releases from gothy stalwarts (CT/DCD) towards a Pixie/Throwing Muses/UVS and related bands focus in the 90s. After tracking down fellow travellers like Area, Bel Canto, Strange Boutique things thinned out quite a bit. Even C'est La Mort had slowed its release schedule down a bit in the early 90s.

There were a number of Euro bands in the Projekt mail catalogs that hit my buttons in ways BTFABG never did. I recall Hyperium and Hall Of Sermon being akin to 80s 4AD, though with quality control issues that 4AD managed to overcome during its classic period.

Album by album Trance To The Sun reviews in this thread! Elon was one of my flatmates sophomore year of college at UCSB. He was a good guy. Very serious. Not surprised at all he's still going strong, guy was obviously in it for life. Always had quality sounds coming out of his room. This Ascension was ok but Trance was definitely when things clicked.

What a cool story! Small world, really.

Had a chance to finally hang out with Sam R. in Portland back in April for dinner. Great guy! Dry as hell sense of humor.

That is cool Milton! Trance To The Sun really are one of the biggest bands for me.
I've been thinking a lot about the sort of fantasy worlds that bands create, it'll be different for every listener but I think a lot of bands deserve more credit for creating unique fascinating worlds. Trance To The Sun stands out in that regard.

Sanpaku- can you remember the European bands? I always want more of this stuff.

I've always admired BTFABG because there seems to be either a defiance/rebellion or (perhaps preferably) an obliviousness about how much their extreme sensibility would be hated and mocked by most music journalists, but it's difficult to imagine many bands not having that awareness.
I wonder how the band would have coped if they had wide enough exposure to have been written about in the main music papers? They probably would have got it 10 times worse than Slowdive.

To anyone who hasn't heard them, I'd describe them as having an old-fashioned theatricality, romantic poetry tropes (many would say cliches), full on seriously and lovingly depicted depression, baroque elegance and spacious sumptuous dark ambience.

You always have bands who try to even it out and say "it isn't all sad stuff that we do, we're funny guys, we like to have a laugh too" but then you get slowcore bands that that unashamedly go for the sad stuff and don't care what people think. I think Black Tape are kind of like that.
I mean, Black Tape, Slowdive, Red House Painters and Low have shown they have a sense of humour (whether in the music or otherwise), but I don't think anyone should have to prove it in their music. I've never understood why people get so offended by complete seriousness in a piece of work or why that should suggest the artists have a dangerous lack of humour.

There is happiness in their music too though, just like most "sad" bands.

Love that song they did about the drowning sailor, that was really atmospheric.

I have the same feeling as Robert, the Projekt stuff seemed to exist in a parallel universe to the other alt music stuff back then... I liked college and indie stuff and mined the music press for information about it (pre-Internet), but the Projekt catalog was a totally separate thing. I didn't really *want* to see that stuff reviewed, because it seemed to come from another place entirely.

Sam is posting some really interesting stuff to the Projekt mailing list lately about the label's history and how it operates, how the Internet has changed things for record labels. Glad he's willing to share on the subject.

RAG: To be honest, my fandom departed to more easily grazed pastures after the early 90s. Shoegaze/Trip-hop/IDM etc. There are a few artists unmentioned so far in this thread worthy of spelunking expeditions. Speaking Silence, Aude, Boudoir, for example. For the most part though, this genre has unencouraging hit/miss ratio for me: too many operatic dropouts, too few clever sound engineers.

Thanks. I haven't heard of Boudoir or Aude. Speaking Silence is familiar.

Very pleased I managed to get a CD of Lycia's Quiet Moments (can't believe this came out 2013, it doesn't seem that long ago). It starts off much like 90s Lycia then becomes very different in most of the later tracks. Surprised this is basically a VanPortfleet solo album; Vanflower has backing vocals in one track then fully sings the final track.
So glad they finally used "The Soil Is Dead" because it was easily the standout of all the new tracks they shown on MySpace years ago.

There's a book on this type of music by David D'Halleine called La Croche Lune. In French only, so I can't read it.

Hmmm. Looking through the Amazon preview it's more like a book of lists. Looks easy enough to follow but I'm not sure this would offer much more than online databases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sda-3rIPrYs

I've really been digging Isabel's Dream lately — Canadian dreampop with drum & bass beats, kinda reminiscent of Seefeel. they only released one EP (2000's Monomara) and one mp3.com release (Blue, which contributes 2 additional tracks), and nobody seems to know what became of them.

^^^ Nice song. Always weird when a band just disappears.

Chasms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5PQNnRiSyQ

Finished listening to Black Tape For A Blue Girl - This Lush Garden Within. It's far more brooding, solemn, and at times oppressively humid than the previous albums. I don't remember the orientalist fantasy in the previous albums either. I bloody love Oscar Herrera.

http://chasmssf.bandcamp.com/

Chasms stuff is quite nice.

What about Ataraxia, Die Verbannten Kinder Evas, Dark Sanctuary, Elend, Ashram, Puissance, Autopsia, even some Wappenbund - darkwave for sure but perhaps not "ethereal" enough?

Thankyou, I'll have to look a lot of them up.

I have an Ataraxia album (Paris Spleen), it's pretty good, I believe they started more ethereal then later on shifted in various different directions, definitely some Dead Can Dance in them.

I've heard a bit of Elend, I think it was neoclassical stuff with kind of a folky flavour.

Can't recall what Dark Sanctuary sounds like.

A lot of it falls into neoclassical darkwave which I guess is where most of the Projekt/4AD fanbase ended up after the 90s. On the Cocteau Twins - Dead Can Dance axis all that stuff is firmly on the DCD side of things, not much "pop" in there.

Sixth Comm - Content With Blood (1987) also recommended btw, definitely falls into the "ethereal goth" category.

Relatively recent stuff like Chelsea Wolfe, Grimes, Eskimeaux, Breathless (old band but got much more 'ethereal'), Autumn's Grey Solace, The Eden House, Esben & The Witch, Sylvaine.

Sixth Comm, Eskimeaux and Sylvaine are new to me, thanks.

I've got the three Esben And The Witch albums and to be honest I only really like three or four songs.
Never dug Eden House or Chelsea Wolfe much.

Sixth Comm is/was basically Patrick Leagas who was a former member of Death in June. Content With Blood is the only thing I've heard by them and I like it very much, although it seems to me very much a follow-up to DIJ's Nada! album (which showed Leagas' influence to a great extent). It's more neofolk with some electronic beats than ethereal goth imho.

Yeah, never thought of 6th Comm in that category - indeed it's a continuation of the more eletronic side of mid-late 80's DIJ. Nothing earth-shattering

The Eskimeaux s/t could be yr cup of tea though - it was a bit of a one-off as her newer stuff isn't very ethereal or gothy, and neither is the old collage-type material before it.

Listening to some songs from Mors Syphilitica - Feather And Fate, "Hues Of Longing" and "Galatea" are totally stunning. One of my favourite albums in the genre. Really wish Primrose would get reissued, it's supposed to be one of their best releases.

Forgotten to mention ambient artist Dark Muse. She has one officially released album called Sounds From Beyond The Silver Wheel. She made a crazy amount of albums in a short time.
I remember when she had a MySpace and was sending out burned CDs but now she has a bandcamp.
http://darkmuse.com/
"Haunting etheral ritual dark ambient experimental"

Are there any of those you can actually listen to before you buy? I just clicked through like ten and none will play.

Don't know. Sounds From Beyond The Silver Wheel should have samples on Amazon.

Ah yeah there it is. Not bad!

Forgot to mention Heavenly Bodies, with one of my favourite This Mortal Coil vocalists Caroline Seaman.
Should have bought their Celestial album earlier because it's very pricy right now. I've wanted to hear it quite a while.

A thread for them here
am i the only person who still listens to that heavenly bodies album from 1988?

Finished listening to Lycia - Quiet Moments, it's very good. "Spring Trees" is such a happy optimistic song for them, really beautiful. The last four tracks are a departure, they're so crackly, distorted and noisy.

Ashrae Fax

Holy moly! I have A LOT to talk about in this thread! It's my favorite genre, and I used to consider myself an expert on it, but I've fallen out of touch with it in recent years.

Anyway, just a thought, I'm curious as to what band we might consider as the first fully realized ethereal one. If we agree that the Twins/This Mortal Coil/etc. were just laying the groundwork for Projekt, Hyperium, and so forth, then...

Ummm. Let's try an analogy, though I doubt there's enough crossover for most in this thread to understand it.

Heavenly Bodies : Schooly D :: Love is Colder Than Death : NWA

I guess Heavenly Bodies were the first fully realized ethereal band, but things only really got going with Love is Colder Than Death.
I mean, even early black tape were only playing around with gothy ambient at first - not completely realized ethereal.

(Yes, although all the ancient 4AD and related things are truly ethereal, I still consider it all a little more experimental in the first place. Kind of like how some say The Beatles were the first rock band.)

I have A LOT to talk about in this thread! It's my favorite genre

Cool, go ahead. I haven't heard Love Is Colder Than Death yet. I'd appreciate if you gave a breakdown on their albums and any other bands you want to talk about.

I haven't listened to much recently but soon I should be listening to the new Lycia album.

You're my bro, Robert! Thanks for starting this thread!

No time to post much right now, but: There was some talk upthread about Elysium, Orange, and Dewdrops records, and I would like to emphasize how important all of this is.
Everything you can get your hands on by Elysium and Orange is absolutely essential, though extremely obscure.

Elysium's album, 'Glisten', is wonderful. That chick just had such a beautiful voice, and it's similar to Lynn Canfield's of Area/Moon Seven Times. Well, the album is a little MOR for the ethereal genre, but the song, "Glistening Ganache" is a heart-stopper. It's one of my favorite songs ever, and it's the first song on the album -- the rest of the album is a very pleasant comedown.

Orange were like a happier, softer Cranes. Their eponymous album is just exquisite. The production's a bit lo-fi and dirty, but the songs themselves are as ethereal and poppy as imaginable. Start with "Starwheel" and "Feijoa" from that album. Also search their "Pearl/Grey Rooms" single. "Grey Rooms" is basically everything that early Cranes ever strived for. Wonderful.

Just for clarity: that Orange single is actually called 'Auto De Fé' (and it contains "Pearl" and "Grey Rooms").

This more properly belongs on a thread for "neoclassical darkwave" ala Dead Can Dance, but the new Irfan album The Eternal Return is the best thing in ages spotify (maybe in Bulgaria), youtube, bandcamp.

A fair number of Neoclassical darkwave bands have come up and it has basically the same audience so I think this thread is this best place for it, unless it suddenly and unexpectedly becomes a huge phenomenon that swallows the thread.

Monster Mash- Listened to those suggested tracks (though couldn't find anything from Auto De Fé). Somebody must have linked "Feijoa" by Orange upthread because I knowhow heard that, it's very nice.

I haven't heard Love Is Colder Than Death yet. I'd appreciate if you gave a breakdown on their albums

I can't quite do that, but, believe me: You need their first ep and first album NOW. I tuned out after their second album, when they went all dance-y - but I should give it another chance.
If you like Dead Can Dance, you might like them. They're actually one of the better DCD imitations, as far as I know. However much you like or dislike Love is Colder Than Death, they're very important to the small history of this genre.

I'm about to go all fourfa.com on you now, and blow yr mind.

This is a somewhat contentious issue, and it took me about five years to figure it out, and wrap my head around it (I wasn't there at the time):

There are two "dark-waves".

There is "dark wave", and then there is "darkwave".

Dark wave just means Clan of Xymox/Xymox, 80s bands on Third Mind, and so on. It just means dance-y goth, usually with treated guitars and drum machines (but it doesn't approach EBM, necessarily).

Darkwave is just a catch-all term for goth in general. It was started by Sam Rosenthal of black tape, either in his 80s zine or the Projekt catalog (can't quite recall atm). It includes actual dark wave, old-school goth, dark cabaret, post-dark ambient, and every other gothy-related genre.

It's kind of like. . . ever cat is a mammal, but not every mammal is a cat.

Just, if you read old zines and ancient things online (like I do), it's easy to get the terms confused. "Darkwave" became the word in the mid-90s, just as actual "dark wave" was on the decline, anyway.

Darkwave just means bloody goth, now. If you ever need actual modern dark wave, start with industrial rock and industrial dance, or even the Alpha Matrix label, but it's basically all hard, hard, hard, post-EBM, now.

So, yeah. This is why we call bands from black tape to Cranes to DCD to Love Spirals Downwards darkwave, now.

and, it isn't off topic!
as far as this thread goes, i just call this genre -ethereal- period. (because i'm american. i think they call it "etheric" in non-english speaking countries). i call it ethereal darkwave when i have to differentiate/be very specific.
(but sometimes, i think it's funny to call it swirly goth!)
(i think nabisco once said that darkwave can only be pronounced correctly by whispering it (shush: darkwave: shush) - he was joking and rad!)
but, in any case, it's a subset of darkwave now, thanks to sam rosenthal, who i love.

It includes actual dark wave, old-school goth, dark cabaret, post-dark ambient, and every other gothy-related genre.

Darkwave just means bloody goth, now.

Doesn't that mean the meaning has stayed the same if it was already an all-encompassing term? Or are you saying "darkwave" only means basic goth now?

I always assumed "darkwave" excluded death rock and the other punkier, harder and metally stuff.

Ethereal Wave is the most common term I hear for most of the music on this thread.

Doesn't that mean the meaning has stayed the same if it was already an all-encompassing term? Or are you saying "darkwave" only means basic goth now?

that's what's so confusing about it all, is that the terms overlap. it's probably not worth getting into in this thread, but it's just something i needed to get off my chest. it was "dark wave" (and meant bands like clan of xymox, handful of snowdrops, beautiful pea green boat, etc. (all of which i'm sure you'd like)) in the 80s, and because of mr. rosenthal and the projekt catalog, it morphed into "darkwave" by the early/mid-90s and its meaning became diluted, as it became an all encompassing term for goth in general.

this is actually probably the wrong thread for this discussion, and it's a pretty complicated history to go over -- especially as all of these odd little genres barely even exist in the first place.

yeah, as an american, i just call the bands we're talking about in this thread either "ethereal", "ethereal wave", or "ethereal darkwave" (but usually just "ethereal" for short. from what i can tell, "etheric" or "heavenly voices" were popular terms as well, especially in europe in the 90s.

anyway, we're pretty in the weeds now. i just really wanted to put these ideas out there on ilm, though.

--

ANYWAY: i'll get around to talking more about other great, obscure ethereal records here at some point. but, for now, i just wanna say how wonderful it is that lycia has finally gained a wider audience now outside of the goth-o-sphere. everyone loves them, now. seems odd to me that that's not yet happened with love spirals downwards or soul whirling somewhere yet, but hopefully it will someday, and hopefully threads like this on ilm will help.

I tuned out after their second album, when they went all dance-y - but I should give it another chance.

Two of my all-time favorite songs to hear in a club are "Wild World" and "Down and Out"!

I'm definitely quite sure I'd really like later Love is Colder Than Death now! I was just enamored with their early DCD-aping material (early LICTD sounded so evil! it was a ton of fun!), and so I was a little put off when they got all dance-y. I've definitely come around to the dance-y side of goth/darkwave/etc. now. I know I'll get a big kick out of later LICTD when I eventually get around to it!

Probably said this above but Delirious by Trance To The Sun was when I learned that dancey stuff could be as gorgeous as the standard ethereal mode. That and parts of Azalean Sea are the only time Trance To The Sun went very dancey I think. I think Skinny Puppy has something in common with that, even though they are very different.
Early Lycia vocals are a bit like Skinny Puppy.

I thought that Sisters Of Mercy were probably didn't have much influence on these bands but "Colours" could be a Lycia track.

I think Soul Whirling Somewhere are too derivative of Red House Painters to find major favour. I think their best stuff is incredible though.

Still only got the first 2 Love Spirals Downwards albums and I like them too, but again, not as original or contending for Lycia level greatness.

But I've said early on in this thread who I do think deserve comparable acclaim.

I really need to learn to stop typing "I think" more than once a paragraph.

What is up with Lycia/Projekt's refusal to reissue Ionia, anyway? Do they disavow it or something? Not figure they can move enough to make repressing it worthwhile?