Alpha - The Impossible Thrill (2001)

Dreamy, abstract Bristol trip-hop. I found this album years ago while searching the Pitchfork archives for their worst reviewed albums -- they gave it a 3.0. But despite the writer's best efforts to make The Impossible Thrill sound unappealing, every descriptor they used just made it sound cooler and cooler. Lush, live instrumental arrangements mixed with trip-hop electronics? Narcotized vocalists? Blatant disregard for traditional song structure? Sounded great to me. So I got it, and have loved it ever since.

Track listing:
1. Still
2. Eon
3. Dim
4. South
5. Almost There
6. Wise
7. Especial
8. Wishes
9. Clear Sky
10. Al Sation
11. Fort

Won't be back

Similar vibes:

A Guy Called Gerald -
Essence (2000)

Milosh -
III (2008)

Gert Emmens - Wanderer of Time (2003)

Mesmerizing synth-worship from this Dutch nerd. Sprawling, subtly shifting pieces that suggest alien landscapes (pictured above), making your way through a hazy, Bladerunner-esque city at night, and drifting through the cosmos.

Track listing:
1. Wanderer of Time
2. Gaspra
3. Alien Matter
4. Elektra World
5. The Voyager of Voyager I

Another time, another space

You'd also like:

Didier Bocquet -
Eclipse (1977)

Mark Shreeve -
Ursa Major (1980)

Dark Storm - Infernal Tyrant (2005)

Czech black metal annihilation. Great songs, great riffs, amazing drummer. A real fucking ripper.

Track listing:
1. For Throne
2. Wrath of Satan
3. Sons of Apocalypse
4. Prince's Seam
5. Triumph of Horned Beast
6. Infernal Tyrant
7. Return of His Majesty
8. Black Satanic Propaganda

Ancient spirits
Created by evil
Follow my voice

If you like this, listen to:

Malleus Maleficarum -
Taedium Vitae (2002)

Grafvitnir -
Semen Serpentis (2014)

Voodoo Child - The End of Everything (1996)

First full-length by this project of Richard Melville Hall, aka Moby. It's soothing, ambient electro/techno with a beautifully gentle sense of forward movement. Easily one of the best albums he ever put out. Also, while I have your attention, I'd just like to say that, "Bodyrock" aside, Play is a fucking masterpiece, and no amount of selling out or mediocrity that has transpired since its release will change that.

Track listing:
1. Patient Love
2. Great Lake
3. Gentle Love
4. Honest Love
5. Slow Motion Suicide
6. Dog Heaven
7. Reject

The rain pushes the buildings aside
The sky turns black
The sky

You might also enjoy:

Ambient Temple of Imagination -
Mystery School (1994)

Château Flight -
Puzzle (2000)

Jane Siberry - The Speckless Sky (1985)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Jane Siberry - The Walking (1987)

Crystalline art pop from the great Jane Siberry. While The Walking will always be my personal favorite Siberry record, The Speckless Sky is probably her best. It's less experimental, but it's also less melodramatic, it's exploratory, and has the same shimmering, idiosyncratic beauty. Pretty sure this is what people have retroactively started calling "sophisti-pop," but I haven't adopted that one yet because it's so lame, it physically hurts to say out loud.

Track listing:
1. One More Colour
2. Seven Steps to the Wall
3. The Very Large Hat
4. Vladimir Vladimir
5. Mein Bitte
6. The Empty City
7. Map of the World Part II
8. The Taxi Ride

There
There's the sun
Through the bars
Cutting swathes
Lighting dust

If you like this, listen to:

Anna Domino -
East and West (1984)

Jan Bang -
Frozen Feelings (1989)

Purple Confusion - The Sound of the Atom Splitting (2002)

One-off LP of glitchy, downtempo IDM from a group that featured, in its 6-member lineup, both original members of M83. Fractured, stuttering beats and gauzily layered synths, with a sense of beautiful, melancholic wonder that brings to mind the spirit -- and occasionally, the sound -- of post-rock.

Track listing:
1. Introduction
2. Return to Nassau
3. Running Behind Butterflies
4. Jeff Koons
5. Bliss
6. Secret Tragedy
7. The Endless Harmony of Your Cosmic Wonder
8. Dreaming of an Hypersomniac Princess
9. Breathing Underwater
10. The Cloud in Your Eyes
11. Falling in the Sea at the Speed of Snow Part I
12. Falling in the Sea at the Speed of Snow Part II

Things are sometimes tragic

You should also check out:

Funckarma -
Solid State (2001)

Ulrich Schnauss -
Far Away Trains Passing By (2001)

Carpe Tenebrum - Mirrored Hate Painting (1998)

Masterful Norwegian black metal featuring two then-members of Dimmu Borgir -- who, it's important to note, were still great at this point. Icy, intricate guitar work, punishing drumming, and atmospheric keyboards. Why is the album art so bad, and why does the shadowing of the band name and album title make it so much worse?

Track listing:
1. The Abyss' Mystic Haze
2. Lured Like You Thought
3. The Painting
4. Mirrored in Scarry Skies
5. And Forever
6. Ludus
7. Void Dress
8. Dreaded Chaotic Reign

Astral chimes divine

You'd also like:

Setherial -
Nord... (1996)

Mactätus -
Blot (1997)

Gob - The Kill Yourself Commandment (1999)

Chaotic, dissonant, misanthropic hardcore. You see, back in my day, you couldn't just go to a Youtube comments section if you wanted a stranger to tell you to kill yourself -- you had to track down the right obscure hardcore record.

Track listing:
1. Inside the Nexus Phase
2. Smoking the Hanta Virus
3. Home Self-Communion Kit
4. Bring Me the Head of Gob
5. Re-Freezing Psychorium
6. Anatomy of a Broken Nose
7. Atrocity Simplex
8. Encoded Information Entitled: Untitled
9. Northern Nevada Methlab Wars
11. Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
12. 21st Century Shit for Brains

I'm your man

More like this:

Discordance Axis -
The Inalienable Dreamless (2000)

pg. 99 -
Document #5 (2000)

Kenny Wheeler - Deer Wan (1978)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
John Taylor, Norma Winston, & Kenny Wheeler - Azimuth (1977)

Laid-back but sprawling, stream-of-consciousness pieces, helmed by Canadian trumpeter/flugelhorn-player Kenny Wheeler, and featuring a band of ECM heavyweights -- check the tags.

Track listing:
1. Peace for Five
2. 3/4 in the Afternoon
3. Sumother Song
4. Deer Wan

Follow down

You'd also enjoy:

Barre Phillips -
Mountainscapes (1976)

Paul Motian Trio -
Le Voyage (1979)

Kay Gardner - Mooncircles (1975)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Kay Gardner - A Rainbow Path (1984)

Beautiful, nature-loving, gynocentric (I just learned that word) folk with an abstract, psychedelic bent and some lovely, baroque string-and-piano arrangements.

Track listing:
1. Prayer to Aphrodite
2. Changing
3. Beautiful Friend
4. Moon Flow
5. Wise Woman
6. Inner Mood I
7. Touching Souls
8. Inner Mood II
9. Lunamuse

There's a woman in the moon
There's a woman in the sea

If you like this, you should hear:

Bridget St. John -
Ask Me No Questions (1969)

Mossy Davidson -
Northwind Calling (1977)

Centurian - Choronzonic Chaos Gods (1999)

Dutch death metal. Blasphemous, ripping, technically proficient brutality. Formed following the dissolution of the great Inquisitor. Significantly more polished/pro than that cover might have you expecting.

Track listing:
1. Damned & Dead
2. The Law of Burning
3. Hail Caligula!!!
4. Misanthropic Luciferian Onslaught
5. Let Jesus Bleed
6. Blood for Satan
7. Soultheft
8. Cross of Fury
9. In the Name of Chaos

When I'm in hell
I won't stop laughing

More along these lines:

Monstrosity -
Millenium (1996)

Serpens Aeon -
Dawn of Kouatl (2003)

Necrofeast - Soulwinds (2000)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Necrofeast - Necrofeast (1996)

For their second and final album, Necrofeast turned sharply away from what I called "disgusting, reprehensible, doom-inflected" black metal and into the realms of the atmospheric/symphonic. A keyboard-dominated mix -- the guitars are seriously barely there -- and a conspicuous drum machine give Soulwinds a uniquely ethereal sound.

Track listing:
1. Slag om Germania
2. Soulwinds in the Battle Sky
3. Runendans
4. Roep van de Raaf
5. A Sacrifice to Ingvi
6. Hymn / Spirit of Death
7. Secrets of the Shadowdancer
8. The Halls and Glory of Walhalla
9. Bloed in de Sneeuw
10. Eeuwige Strijd Tegen al Licht en Leven

Cosmic forces
Total blackness

Also listen to:

Odium -
The Sad Realm of the Stars (1998)

Lunar Aurora - Of Stargates and
Bloodstained Celestial Spheres (1999)

Sculpture - Like a Dead Flower (1997)

An obscure EP of Portuguese doom/death. Between the wandering harmonized guitar leads and the vocals switching back-and-forth between a weepy moan and a death growl, Like a Dead Flower sounds pretty much exactly like Serenades-era Anathema.

Track listing:
1. Arid Life
2. At the Gates of Shadows World
3. Autumn Serenades
4. The Remains of the Day
5. Our Crying Earth

I want to belong to the nighttime

You should also hear:

Paradigma -
Mare Veris (1995)

Saturnus -
Paradise Belongs to You (1996)

France Joli - France Joli (1979)

Heavenly disco from French-Canadian singer France Joli. Four long, slow-building tracks whose immaculate, detail-heavy production is just as conducive to headphone listening as it is to shaking your fat ass.

Track listing:
1. Come to Me
2. Let Go
3. Don't Stop Dancing
4. Playboy

The only one you love

You'd also like:

The Players' Association -
The Players' Association (1977)

Adrian Gurvitz -
Sweet Vendetta (1979)

Hyatari - The Light Carriers (2004)

A crushing monolith of instrumental post-metal/drone-doom, divided into seven movements. Towering waves of guitar crashing down around simple, programmed drum patterns, and filled out by keyboards, samples, and one instance of chanting, reverb-drenched vocals.

Track listing:
1. Sheet of Flames
2. Freeform for the Disenfranchised
3. The Light Carriers
4. Fourth Realm
5. 14,000,000,000 Years Ago
6. Harvesting Sod
7. Collapse

Ooze

You'd probably also like:

Boris -
Amplifier Worship (1998)

Old Man Gloom -
Seminar III: Zozobra (2001)