Rammstein Music is a universal language, and nowhere is that more clearly evidenced by being able to appreciate musicians in different languages. Deep, pounding rhythms that sweep you up in their bass and tap into something primal: the strong resonance of old. Fast, heavy, rhythmic. Added bonus, you learn German involuntarily and begin pounding desks/steering wheels/your own chest like a deranged blacksmith. If you're not ready to run and fight and scream your defiance of the heavens after this, you just haven't listened to enough of it.
Electric Six - Fire
Don't let anybody tell you that music has got to have all this "profound meaning" they all talk about. Sure it can, but sometimes that meaning is "jumping up and down and singing at the top of your lungs for the sheer exuberance of being alive". Electric Six embody this perfectly. Nobody could ever accuse them of having and overabundance of, say, political influence, but I've leaped and shrieked far more to these guys than I ever have to Malcolm Turnbull. It's something like what would happen if you wanted to create the most grooveable, singable songs possible using only a synthesiser and (presumably) a wheelbarrow of cocaine. First two albums are the best - Fire and Senor Smoke.
Incidentally the lead singer is also in a band called Evil Cowards that is just as amazingly energetic and rad. Look up 500 Words and Soldiers of Satan. Scientifically impossible to be upset and/or immobile while listening to them.
David Bowie - Outside
Pick a genre - any genre - and then make sure you find Bowie's foray into such, because he's probably made one. He reinvented himself countess times, spawning a discography containing just about every known expression of music. He made about a thousand "classics" in the old days, and then started to depart from the apparently overcrowded scene of "androgynous rock demigod" by basically just doing whatever the hell he wanted. 'Outside' is one of my favourite albums: a detective story in a dystopian, techno-noir future and just typing that has given me an erection. Industrial and techno-ish, still showcasing Bowie's incredible vocals and lyrics.
Jon Hallur - Eve Online soundtrack
You may have heard of the space game Eve Online, where thousands of nerds escape their dreary, corporate lives to participate in exciting corporate lives...but in SPACE! Anyway, the game's soundtrack is an experience unto itself. As far as I know it's all one guy from Iceland - Jon Hallur - who is genuinely travelling amongst the stars regularly and/or consuming a truly heroic amount of psychotropic substances at the bottom of a caldera. Either way, he captures the feel of interstellar travel so perfectly: his works propel you from your computer and into the barren coldness of the endless black effortlessly. His haunting pieces change the way you see the world: they won't let you forget the vastness of space, nor our insignificance within it. Infinite, barren, lonely, bleak.
I've written a couple of short stories to these pieces and it reads like the diaries of a nihilist Han Solo: "There is nothing for us here. We could all die right now and there would be no lasting impact on the universe. Don't forget those explosives - they are valuable. These drugs are losing their kick, I must get more. There is a settlement on this moon that can be easily robbed. I left that fool outside to suffocate. I scrubbed the blood from the kitchen floor and cooked. Everything burns and nothing can be done. There is death and loss and nothing can be done. We will all die and nothing can be done."
Start with My Other Residency, Below the Asteroids and Nouvelle Rouvenor Hero, and strap yourself in.
Tool
So in some ways these guys tick me off due to their apparent need for being contrary, offensive, faux-profound, disgusting and just plain weird. Behind that childish bullshit, however, an incredible experience awaits you. Slow, heavy, prog-rock that doesn't pander to any of your fancy, convenient notions of "accessibility", "reasonable track length", "relatable topics", or "traditional music structure". They almost go out of their way to erect barriers to enjoying their music. But I promise it's worth it - think of them like the Dark Souls of music.
They're the band you listen to when you have time to yourself: not the sort of stuff you listen to in a group...unless your group has just collectively taken, like, a BUNCH of drugs. Anyway, the music provokes introspection, the length of the songs designed to lead your thoughts down doorways opened by the music. Lyrics from somewhere on the other side of Jupiter compound this, the eclectic topics - seemingly unrelated to each other even within songs - set off virgin triggers in your synapses. Concepts and ideas bubble to the surface of your thoughts without your volition, and you're taken on a journey - somewhat involuntarily - through the strange landscape of your own consciousness.
On top of this, the singer - Maynard Keenan - uses his voice like an instrument on its own. He's a goddamn weapon. And he can damage you.
Listen to them. Start with Aenema and Lateralus albums. Don't be afraid to drop them, but do try.
Parov Stelar
“Lunatic Austrian force-feeds a bunch of old-school swing music into a self-aware but cocaine-addled sampling computer.” That's really the most plausible explanation of how this music came about. But by God it's amazing. Start with All Night, Booty Swing and The Paris Swing Box. Be warned: will cause spontaneous and inappropriate burlesque costume appearances. Sort of like that scene at the end of Rocky Horror where the Professor shows off his stocking-clad legs. I am listening to this music right now and My arms are flung skyward and my hips are gyrating. I can feel the corset tightening. I wiped my mouth and there was lipstick on my hand. It's happening, oh God!
The Mountain Goats - Moon Colony Bloodbath
Acoustic and vocal album about a man's slow descent into madness while on the job. His job happens to be security guard on a secret organ farm on the moon, so it's maybe understandable he's not wholly free of mental tension. Oblique storytelling about the bizarre characteristics of our nameless guard's life, chronicling the effects of crippling loneliness and isolation on the human mind. Quite aside from the content, it's full of beautiful music that is genuinely soothing and lovely.
Koyaanisqatsi - Philip Glass
Philip Glass is what happens when an experimental musician exists outside the "unlistenable, bullshit, atonal metal" genre. On the surface, like all deep bodies of water, his productions appear to be much of the same. But there is a hypnotic depth to his wordless productions: a meditative quality that insulates you from the outside world and ushers you down into the inner parts of your brain where only you and apparently Philip Glass have been before. Sort of like Tool but much more...supportive. Much better suited to enhancing whatever you're doing rather than forcing newness upon you. I use this guy a lot for research and writing: works great for essays and projects.
