United Waters - Your First Ever River (2011)

Your First Ever River simulates the experience of listening to a record while on opioids and submerged in a warm bath. Everything sounds warped, slowed-down, distant, arrhythmic, and drugged-out, but, all things considered, it's surprisingly accessible.

Track listing:
1. My Geology I-IV
2. Spires I
3. Platetectonics
4. Spires II
5. No End to Eyes
6. Statuary
7. Different Heavens

Circles

Univers Zero - Ceux du Dehors (1981)

Third album from this dark, challenging Belgian prog outfit. Dissonant, asymmetrical melodies, odd time signatures, and an overall sense of menacing, barely contained chaos.

Track listing:
1. Dense
2. La Corne du Bois des Pendus
3. Bonjour Chez Vous
4. Combat
5. La Musique D'erich Zann
6. La Tete du Corbeau
7. Triomphe des Mouches

Those from the outside

Lisa Gerrard - The Mirror Pool (1995)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Lisa Gerrard & Patrick Cassidy - Immortal Memory (2004)

Lisa Gerrard (of Dead Can Dance)'s bold, awe-inspiring debut solo album, released one year before DCD's disbandment. Against a lush, orchestral backdrop, Gerrard's voice soars and trembles, evoking the unknowable sorrow of the universe as only she can. Convincingly sounds like the kind of an album a Greek goddess might have recorded.

Track listing:
1. Violina (The Last Embrace)
2. Là-Bas (Song of the Drowned)
3. Persian Love Song (The Silver Gun)
4. Sanvean (I Am Your Shadow)
5. The Rite
6. Ajhon
7. Glorafin
8. Majhnavean's Music Box
9. Largo
10. Werd
11. Laurelei
12. Celon
13. Venteles
14. Swans
15. Nilleshna
16. Gloradin

Shadow magnet

Cirith Gorgor - Unveiling the Essence (2001)

Raging melodic black metal, straight outta the Netherlands. If someone asks you what black metal sounds like, play this as loudly as possible while you slit his or her throat as an offering to Our Dark Lord.

Track listing:
1. Conquering the Shadowworld
2. Unveiling the Essence
3. Bellum Germanicum
4. Northern Spell of Warcraft
5. Into a Nightly Silence
6. A Twilight Serenade
7. The Stormrulers
8. Visions of a Distant Past

Grinning invincible, darkness impenetrable

Edgar Froese - Aqua (1974)

Very sad to hear about the passing of Edgar Froese. In honor of this influential, phenomenally talented artist, let's take a dive into the deep, haunting waters of his solo debut. Mr. Froese, thank you for a lifetime's worth of synth-based bliss.

Track listing:
1. Aqua
2. Panorphelia
3. NGC 891
4. Upland

Genesis

Algaion - Oimai Algaion (1995)

Here's some more sexy late-night black metal, by way of Sweden. With a drum machine and an overly long symphonic intro to boot, Oimai Algaion overcomes the sterility of its production through sheer emotive force.

Track listing:
1. Venenum Hominitatis (Intro)
2. Natrices Educati
3. Heosphoros
4. In Aede Dolorium
5. On the Reach of Zaphonia
6. Kratos
7. The Last Delusion

See what is to come

Giorgio Moroder - Einzelgänger (1975)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Giorgio Moroder - E=MC² (1979)

Quite a different beast from the euphoric, dance-friendly sounds he'd be innovating just two years later, Einzelgänger finds Moroder exploring alien, (kraut)rocky landscapes with just some synthesizers and heavily processed vocals to protect him.

Track listing:
1. Einzelgänger
2. Aus
3. Warum
4. Percussiv
5. Good Old Germany
6. Basslich
7. Untergang
8. Liebes-Arie
9. Einzelgänger

Me Giorgio

Underdark - I Am Above All (2006)

Raging Ukranian black metal. I Am Above All is pretty generic -- glacial, tremolo-picked riffs, unremarkable vocals, nearly constant blasting with some midtempo bits for variety -- but it's a good, solid mix of evil majesty and ass-kicking brutality, and the production's claustrophobic and dirty, so who fucking cares? Not this guy.

Generally speaking, I don't listen to black metal in the morning, and I'd like my stupid blog to reflect that, so I'm making this a bonus nighttime post for all the other nocturnal black metal nerds.

Track listing:
1. Basements of Consciousness
2. Apotheosis of Insignificance
3. Break Out
4. Leaving
5. Depth of Idea
6. I Am Above All
7. I Have Become the Wind
8. Hor Min Sang

He is no longer a bird

Nest - Trail of the Unwary (2007)

Ethereal Finnish neofolk. Lush keyboards and cavernous percussion create a dark, atmospheric backdrop for the shimmering sound of the kantele, a traditional Finnish stringed instrument on which Nest's songs, I gather, are written. Vocals rarely appear, and are limited to throaty whispers.

Track listing:
1. Moonbow
2. Claw and Fang
3. Kontio
4. Hunt
5. The Mire
6. The Turning of the Tides
7. Across the Waters

Intent on dealing death

The Tears - Here Come the Tears (2005)

The Tears were Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler, the main creative forces behind Suede's landmark first two records, and this record represents what is likely to be the closest we'll get to a reunion of that original lineup. I refuse to contribute any more speculation to the internet ether regarding the strained relationship between these two musicians. I will simply say that Here Come the Tears is a phenomenal record of glittering, glam rock-infused Britpop that, much like those first two Suede records, hovers directly above the thin line between opulence and glamour.

Track listing:
1. Refugees
2. Autograph
3. Co-Star
4. Imperfection
5. The Ghost of You
6. Two Creatures
7. Lovers
8. Fallen Idol
9. Brave New Century
10. Beautiful Pain
11. The Asylum
12. Apollo 13
13. A Love as Strong as Death

When you appear
I'll stick to your teeth

Vesania - God the Lux (2005)

Polish Symphonic black metal. God the Lux has a precise, punishing sound that, when backed by the ambience of keyboard choirs and the like, reads almost as industrial. Could do without the 20+ minutes of silence before the last track -- due to a derpy desire to make the album 60 minutes and 66 seconds, which apparently no one told them is actually 61 minutes and 6 seconds -- and their promo pics, for that matter.

Track listing:
1. Rest in Pain
2. Posthuman Kind
3. Lumen Clamosum
4. God the Lux
5. Synchroscheme
6. Phosphorror
7. Lumen Funestum
8. The Mystery
9. Fireclipse
10. Lumen Coruscum
11. Legions Are Me
12. Inlustra Nigror

Spaces drowning in nothingness

Air Formation - Nothing to Wish For (Nothing to Lose) (2010)

Starry-eyed shoegaze of the more concrete, song-based, Catherine Wheel/Ride variety, albeit with bigger, more syrupy, modern production. Air Formation's swansong, Nothing to Wish For (Nothing to Lose) is one of those records that seems to speak to every mood a person might find oneself in.

Track listing:
1. Three Years Pass
2. Stars & Knives
3. Low December Sun
4. Alone at Last
5. Don't Wait 'Til Dawn
6. Meltdown
7. Until Today
8. Like I Hold You
9. Cut Through the Night
10. Outro
11. Distant Silhouettes

Chemistry

Árstíðir lífsins - Jǫtunheima dolgferð (2010)

Árstíðir lífsins make some of the best pagan black metal this side of Helrunar, with whom they share a couple of members. Powerful, epic odes to (one imagines) the natural world. Clean and growled vocals, some viola, cello, and piano, and a grand, sorrowful sound.

Track listing:
1. Ísa brots blómin milli hnignunar marnars barna
2. Morgunn í grárri vindhjálmars þoku við berufjörð
3. Velkomin í lífið, ávarpar maðr sjálfan sig
4. Haka kleifir berja ok brjóta við enda langrar ferðar sinnar
5. Lifðu með öðrum, með þínum eigin
6. Eigi hefr á augu, unnskíðs komit síðan
7. Margt breytist fyrir orð völvanna
8. Við fundum nýtt heimili, langt burtu í vestrinu
9. Þat er stormr ok bláköld vatnssmíðin litar regna borg

I can see you

Eleven Tigers - Clouds Are Mountains (2010)

Bass-heavy, stuttering beats under the cover of drifting, textural synths/keyboards/other (really, I have no idea how music and sounds like this are created) and, intermittently, heavily processed vocals and samples. An alluringly spaced-out album, mixed as a single, nonstop experience, that rewards close, repeated listening.

Track listing:
1. Open Mirror
2. Made Of
3. Songs for You
4. Couldn't
5. Thesis
6. Frozen Wheel
7. Stood Up
8. Flux
9. Atomic Turnip
10. Sparkles
11. With a Little Patience
12. Forever
13. Stableface
14. There Will Be Time

Illuminations

Damien Jurado - Ghost of David (2000)

A sparse, often harrowing album of homespun indie folk. Songs like "Medication", whose distraught narrator asks God to take his troubled brother's life, and "Tonight I Will Retire", an aural suicide note, are sure to bring down even the best of moods. The album takes a strange, experimental turn about halfway through before returning to the more traditional singer-songwriter approach at the end; after however many years of listening, I still can't decide whether or not I think it was a good move.

Track listing:
1. Medication
2. Desert
3. Johnny Go Riding
4. Great Today
5. Tonight I Will Retire
6. Ghost of David
7. Parking Lot
8. Rearview
9. Paxil
10. Walk with Me
11. December
12. Rosewood Casket
13. Ghost in the Snow

Two in the morning, the phone disconnected
Her man knows I'm calling, it's what I expected
A note on my backdoor saying, "Baby not tonight."
So I sit with my brother who is nursing a cut wrist
He's mumbling "Forgive me."
And "Don't let them take me away."