Dark ambient

Dark ambient is a subgenre of ambient music which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of new synthesizer and

Dark ambient is a subgenre of ambient music which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of new synthesizer and sampling technology in the electronic music genre and other technical advances in music. Dark ambient is a very diverse genre; it is often closely linked with industrial music, noise, gothic rock, and sometimes even black metal, yet can be free from any derivatives and connections to other genres or styles. The term is generally used as a catch-all for any form of ambient music that has dark, foreboding, ominous, or discordant overtones.

The genre did not have a single pioneering musician or persons who invented the term or genre, it somewhat evolved on its own, similar to that of the IDM genre. The roots of dark ambient can be seen in several of Brian Eno's early collaborations that had a distinctly dark or discordant edge, notably "An Index of Metals" (from Evening Star (1975)), a collaboration with Robert Fripp that incorporated harsh guitar feedback, the ambient pieces on the second half of David Bowie's Low (1977), and Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics (1980), a collaboration with Jon Hassell.