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July 9, 2012 10:22 AM Subscribe
Disco of the Ruinous Ones: Help me build a special little sound track for the each of the Warhammer 40K Gods of Chaos.
A good buddy of mine is running my household a Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader game at some point in the near future, and has requested that we help out with music. In particular, he needs a set of tunes that embodies each of the Chaos Gods. He's specified no lyrics, just instrumental or unobtrusive non-English choral. We need a fat juicy playlist for each of the four Ruinous powers:
Slaanesh, god of decadence, lust and carnal delights, whose playlist so far is leaning towards beautiful music with threatening undertones, heavy on things like harp and violins, soaring voice-as-instrument, airy and lovely but starting to fray at the edges;
Nurgle who is disease and lively decay, whose playlist is full of weird erratic fat sounding dirty electronica, the sort that you can't really tell if it's being played on a Moog or a set of wet drums in the bottom of a cotton bale. Flatulent, cheerfully noxious stuff;
Tzeentch, the dark architect and lord of magic and machination, who is being favoured with repetitious, almost Baroque harpsichord and Latin chants, heavy and intricate. Almost ecclesiastic, if your god was the god of change, evolution and intrigue.
And last but not least is Khorne, the Blood God and god of war, bombastic and needlessly destructive and represented here with drum, brass, blaring fighty kind of music. I need the most help with him because I just don't listen to that sort of music as a whole.
Most of this is erring towards electronica - with the exception of the choral stuff we've found for for Slaanesh, even the classical instruments are largely synthesized. It's mostly to go on in the background while we're dealing with their cultists, presumably. We haven't started yet so who knows? Basically nothing that is going to drown out the GM or the other players, hard task for ole Khorne there, but he's always been a bit of a jerk really so I'm not that surprised. We already have the Dawn of War soundtrack sorted too.
I've largely been pillaging soundtracks for movies and games (Braid and Portal have been surprisingly useful) and more along that line would be rad.
Any and all help gratefully received. My character doesn't have a name yet, so just sayin', get me inspired and we'll see.
A good buddy of mine is running my household a Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader game at some point in the near future, and has requested that we help out with music. In particular, he needs a set of tunes that embodies each of the Chaos Gods. He's specified no lyrics, just instrumental or unobtrusive non-English choral. We need a fat juicy playlist for each of the four Ruinous powers:
Slaanesh, god of decadence, lust and carnal delights, whose playlist so far is leaning towards beautiful music with threatening undertones, heavy on things like harp and violins, soaring voice-as-instrument, airy and lovely but starting to fray at the edges;
Nurgle who is disease and lively decay, whose playlist is full of weird erratic fat sounding dirty electronica, the sort that you can't really tell if it's being played on a Moog or a set of wet drums in the bottom of a cotton bale. Flatulent, cheerfully noxious stuff;
Tzeentch, the dark architect and lord of magic and machination, who is being favoured with repetitious, almost Baroque harpsichord and Latin chants, heavy and intricate. Almost ecclesiastic, if your god was the god of change, evolution and intrigue.
And last but not least is Khorne, the Blood God and god of war, bombastic and needlessly destructive and represented here with drum, brass, blaring fighty kind of music. I need the most help with him because I just don't listen to that sort of music as a whole.
Most of this is erring towards electronica - with the exception of the choral stuff we've found for for Slaanesh, even the classical instruments are largely synthesized. It's mostly to go on in the background while we're dealing with their cultists, presumably. We haven't started yet so who knows? Basically nothing that is going to drown out the GM or the other players, hard task for ole Khorne there, but he's always been a bit of a jerk really so I'm not that surprised. We already have the Dawn of War soundtrack sorted too.
I've largely been pillaging soundtracks for movies and games (Braid and Portal have been surprisingly useful) and more along that line would be rad.
Any and all help gratefully received. My character doesn't have a name yet, so just sayin', get me inspired and we'll see.
Best answer: Oh goodness, you are making my inner 13-year-old very happy. I have spent way too much time thinking about this very issue.
I think your Tzeentch needs to be less churchy and more hallucinatory. Think "blooming buzzing confusion." Check out Penderecki's Threnody, Crumb's Black Angels, Stockhausen's Hymns, maybe some of La Monte Young's more dissonant stuff, maybe some drone doom. Basically I just don't think Baroque music is disorienting enough. You want stuff that leaves you feeling like you don't know which notes are right or wrong, or which end is up, or when it's going to stop.
Or if that seems like the wrong aesthetic, maybe try Magma for Tzeentch. They're out at the babbling-chaotic-weirdness end of 70s prog rock, a bit more tuneful and accessible but still basically alien. The trouble with them is that sometimes they sound a little Broadway music from the same era — which could either be totally wrong or perversely ridiculously right. Or check out some of the fifty-things-going-on-at-once bits from the Rite of Spring. (Listen to the end of the clip for maximum Tzeentchy twittering mayhem.) Or maybe some of the nice roiling repetitive bits of Turangalila? (Again, the weirdness builds, keep listening for a few minutes.)
Khorne is where I'd bring out the big ecclesiastical guns. Verdi's Requiem is a bit of a cliché, but it sure seems like the right cliché for the occasion. Or the start of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms? Both have lyrics, but it's all Latin and basically sounds like Movie Battle Scene Background Music, so I think it'll fit the bill.
And are English lyrics that you can't really hear or understand acceptable? Because in my book My Bloody Valentine (played painfully loud, natch) is what Slaanesh sounds like. Soaring strings also seem like a good approach, though.
Nurgle should absolutely be techno that sounds like wet farts. So just keep doing what you're doing there. :)
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:28 AM on July 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
I think your Tzeentch needs to be less churchy and more hallucinatory. Think "blooming buzzing confusion." Check out Penderecki's Threnody, Crumb's Black Angels, Stockhausen's Hymns, maybe some of La Monte Young's more dissonant stuff, maybe some drone doom. Basically I just don't think Baroque music is disorienting enough. You want stuff that leaves you feeling like you don't know which notes are right or wrong, or which end is up, or when it's going to stop.
Or if that seems like the wrong aesthetic, maybe try Magma for Tzeentch. They're out at the babbling-chaotic-weirdness end of 70s prog rock, a bit more tuneful and accessible but still basically alien. The trouble with them is that sometimes they sound a little Broadway music from the same era — which could either be totally wrong or perversely ridiculously right. Or check out some of the fifty-things-going-on-at-once bits from the Rite of Spring. (Listen to the end of the clip for maximum Tzeentchy twittering mayhem.) Or maybe some of the nice roiling repetitive bits of Turangalila? (Again, the weirdness builds, keep listening for a few minutes.)
Khorne is where I'd bring out the big ecclesiastical guns. Verdi's Requiem is a bit of a cliché, but it sure seems like the right cliché for the occasion. Or the start of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms? Both have lyrics, but it's all Latin and basically sounds like Movie Battle Scene Background Music, so I think it'll fit the bill.
And are English lyrics that you can't really hear or understand acceptable? Because in my book My Bloody Valentine (played painfully loud, natch) is what Slaanesh sounds like. Soaring strings also seem like a good approach, though.
Nurgle should absolutely be techno that sounds like wet farts. So just keep doing what you're doing there. :)
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:28 AM on July 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
I think black metal is definitely the way to go for Khorne, although you could also go a bit more operatic
For Slaanesh, maybe one or two of Kurt Weill's Instrumental Pieces. Or perhaps go full on Baroque?
For Tzeentch, you definitely want some Einstürzende Neubauten.
I'm not sure what music goes with Nurgle. Is that sort of like asking what wine goes with motor oil?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:08 PM on July 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
For Slaanesh, maybe one or two of Kurt Weill's Instrumental Pieces. Or perhaps go full on Baroque?
For Tzeentch, you definitely want some Einstürzende Neubauten.
I'm not sure what music goes with Nurgle. Is that sort of like asking what wine goes with motor oil?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:08 PM on July 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
Ooo- does this work as Slaaneshi for you? And of course, Dead Can Dance might work for Tzeentch.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:35 PM on July 9, 2012
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:35 PM on July 9, 2012
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For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCew08d6bN8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoG7SSk-PIQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZIEUPudUDk
posted by anti social order at 10:54 AM on July 9, 2012