Thread: Post obscure music that is extremely good.

Originally Posted by Box77

... I think Germany is filled with this genre of dark music though ...

Very true indeed! Sopor Aeternus are beautiful - and I didn't know them up to now! Something new to listen to and make my husband grin at the latest tragic-elegiac wailings on full blast! I love my amplifier, it's a Marantz one and can do a lot (some bragging must be allowed)! Need to catch up on the other stuff, but for now something obscure and funny, while still darkish and industrial, from Bavaria:

This is quite nice, I find - hymnic as the title suggests:




The dancers are great in this and later the guys themselves hilarious! I should jump my old ass up and down in a club myself again - it's been a while...




The famous Israel Song in medieval German - "Land of the Lord" - elegiac female voice and with the obligatory bumm bumm bumm, too:




Seen from the perspective of musical quality - weell - but I like it once in a while. Don't know where "we" got this much electronic inner darkness from, though...



Edit: Oh wow!! I seriously love this Soap&Skin song 'Marche Funèbre', Djaxup!! Almost feeling bad now for only coming up with hoppity-hopp low Anspruch darkness! And I really like the other one, too!

More excellent obscure 70's rock.



Some of the main characters in the movie Almost Famous are in a band called Stillwater. That is not this band. The movie band is completely fictitious, but the name probably came from the real Stillwater.

I really think every living person should listen to Lisa Gerrards "Sacrifice" at least once. I will take some 7 minutes of your time, but you will be well rewarded by the second part. Warning... like most good songs that build up, this only works when listened to as a whole. Skipping to it will just ruin it.

She is not obscure too much I guess, most ppl will recognize her from the Gladiator soundtrack with Hans Zimmer.


Or here with another very cool movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6DZsEQ82lE


If you're into more dark stuff StephL, her earlier work might appeal more to you. She is the female part of "Dead can Dance". Like this?




Cocteau Twins is another great band, Elisabeth Fraser can sure play with her voice. Most will know her version of the song "song to the siren", but my fav is this here:

I've realized that the previous fusion folk rock samples I put, are based on some music a little bit more obscure and good to dance ...
So here I'm taking the rock'n'roll part off and let just the folk sounds to have a better idea what those guys have done there:

By the way, you can see the Spanish influence on the costumes coming from the bullfighting clothing imported long ago:



Apparently this band are best known on this genre of music characteristic of the Andean people:



During the XVI century, when the catholic church wanted to indoctrinate the Aymara people, it imported a play named 'The Seven Deadly Sins' and tried to teach these people about the fight between good and evil, etc... this is what they got so far, a dance called 'Diablada' (something about the devil) which music is very sticky to dance when drunk:

Therion pretty much invented Symphonic Metal and is one of the best.

It was done in 1972 - Peru (few people took it seriously):

Thats some whacky stuff Box77 but nice bass playing on the last one. The more folklore music is not my taste I must confess, but I gave it a try.

Originally Posted by Djaxup

Thats some whacky stuff Box77 but nice bass playing on the last one. The more folklore music is not my taste I must confess, but I gave it a try.

Nice to hear that somebody at least tried it. The problem with folkloric music, I think, is that people who knows it tend to believe it's worldwide known just because of it's popular in its country of origin (sometimes just a region in the country) and they don't care to let it be known. When I look for more specific songs that I heard which I liked a lot, it's almost impossible to find them in Youtube for example. First of all, because of few people knows what's their title (usually just those who play it), and secondly because if you get to find it, it's so badly recorded, that it makes really hard to catch its essence unless you already know it. I hope in the future people will care to properly save those songs otherwise they will remain unknown like this one (that I can particularly hear for hours), which was composed by somebody in the XVIII century:

This one is cool, it has a renaissance type of vibe imo. Well played and recorded. I liked that!

I think its time for some Halo music, I mean Gregorian chant lol. (subtitle for this post should be lame music history jokes) I really do enjoy this music in retrospect though.





And some Opera as well. This is a modern rendition of Handel's Julius Caesar opera and is a scene when the character in blue (totally forget his name) is getting Cleopatra ready to seduce Caesar. The music is awesome and his performance is spot on, as he is a soprano and supposed to give off the same impression as a castrato. Just their hand gestures and facial expressions make this performance so bizarre for me and fitting for this thread lol.




And the said scene when Cleopatra actually seduces Caesar. Pretty self explanatory




Its just hilarious to me because all the characters are running around in modern clothing with Handel's original music playing in the background by the pit orchestra. Especially when military-dressed guys are on stage running around lol.

Frank Zappa!!! guacamole queen...

"Lick me in the Arse"-By W.A. Mozart

The translated lyrics:

Lick me in the arse!
Let us be glad!
Grumbling is in vain!
Growling, droning is in vain,
is the true bane of life,
Droning is in vain,
Growling, droning is in vain, in vain!
Thus let us be cheerful and merry, be glad!

Not too sure about this being good, but it is extremely obscure. Note the song length: 11:16:54, yep 11 hours.
Awesome music, awesome band, their videos are extremely funny

The Breeders were a 90's alternative band that had fans and got some videos shown on MTV a few times, but they were never really all that big. They should have been enormous. I think they were the best of the 90's alternative bands, aside from Stereolab. The lead singer, Kim Deal, was a member of the Pixies. The Breeders are what I would consider obscure in 2014.





Here's another one from Stereolab.

Yay, the Breeders! MTV used Cannonball in one of their commercials for a long time. Love the song, the whole album was pretty good.

One of my all-time favorite albums, and it is quite obscure over here. Don't really know about the States or Britain though...

Maxinquaye by Tricky. Overcome is my absolute favorite song, but I could not find a good version of it.




This one here, the whole soundtrack to be specific, was a hit in the pc gaming scene. It has won just about every award out there for best game soundtrack. The complete soundtrack is also available on YT. Great tunes

A friend of mine used to collect tons of progressive music like King Crimson, Magma, Arena, etc. I would consider this one as obscure among the obscure bands of this genre, Mayfair:

Originally Posted by Djaxup

Yay, the Breeders! MTV used Cannonball in one of their commercials for a long time. Love the song, the whole album was pretty good.

Really? I never saw that commercial. I heard "Cannonball" on the LSU radio station when I lived in Baton Rouge, and I loved it. I told my roommate, who is my cousin, about the song. He pulled out his CD of Last Splash and played the song. He is one of two other Breeders fans I can name. I think the Breeders should have been even bigger than Nirvana.

Spoiler for opinions:

Last Splash is a classic, I remember finding it at a Goodwill my junior year for a couple bucks and feeling like I won the lottery.

But did anyone ever listen to their Mountain Battles album from 2008?
I remember being super excited about it at the time, and downloaded I think one song, but never got around to buying it.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

I think the Breeders should have been even bigger than Nirvana.

I would agree with this, and also add that I believe Sonic Youth should have been at least as big as Nirvana. Hell, they toured together at one point. Nevermind is on tons of best of lists, and I feel Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth should be on just as many. (Oddly, neither album is my favourite from either artist, but) DN was just as influential to contemporary music, and in terms of what's popular today The Breeders probably have them both beat!

I remember the first time I heard Sonic Youth, it was like nothing I'd ever heard before, but I've since come to love numerous groups who's sound is clearly influenced by them.

It is music made out of occasionally chaotic or random noise...and could be considered obscure depending on who you ask, and their definition of obscure...so:

Sonic Youth
"Expressway To Yr Skull" (1986)

"Bull In The Heather" (1994)

"The Diamond Sea" (1995)


If only I could time travel solely for the purpose of experiencing amazing concerts. For the year of my birth Sonic Youth with Dinosaur Jr. would for sure be on the list.

It was August of 1994 when I heard "Last Splash" on the LSU radio station and became an instant fanatic. I was 22 then. I had a friend who was a major Sonic Youth fan during that era. He played one of their CD's when some people were hanging out at his house one night. I asked who was playing, and he said it was Sonic Youth. That was the only time I ever heard them until a few minutes ago when I played the videos you posted. They were a pretty original and creative act.

Sonic Youth is effin cult! A great and influential Band.

Amadou & Mariam

Spoiler for opinions:

I was just about to post this in What Are You Listening To, but if an acceptable definition of obscure is related to the amount of people I know that like them?

There is only one person I know likes this group, but I tend to see that as more of a poor reflection on how many people I know...not the appeal of the music itself.

And then I thought, if anyone were to accidentally click on it and listen, they might think...what sort of alien audio crack is this chick on?

This is my problem with the term "obscure".

Thank you for making this thread! I'm going to have to scour every post because I love music and I hate what is being done to it by the mainstream!!!

I was actually told about this thread by another person here who thought I should share my friend's music. He goes by the name The Ventriloquist Mute. He has two albums now and I think a third is about to be released. You can listen to his first two CDs, Talk is Cheap and Quintessence, on the website Bandcamp and you can download them for a small fee. Unfortunately I can't link it here. He plays bass guitar and mixes with MIDI so he usually creates every piece of the song himself. Occasionally he has others play their instruments into his MIDI though. Usually the guys from the band he was in while in NC. They were called the Jill Knox Band, so obviously it was more her music because she wrote all the songs. They are pretty good as well, but more poppy... pop rock I guess. The album they made is called Let Me Be Free. I'm pretty sure most people like Slavedriver and I'm Just The Girl (Hiding in the Corner) most out of that CD.

So yeah, there's two artists and three albums right there!