A thread for music that creates feelings of bliss and disassociation.

I've a feeling that threads for this must exist, but I couldn't find any. I was listening to 'Wind Whirl' by Powers / Pulice / Rolin and getting carried away on the spiralling crescendo-like nature of it, the layering, the gradual sense of things building to the point where I almost disappear into disassociative bliss. I might even stretch to the point of absurdity and quote Rilke: "For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we can still barely endure."

What specific tracks or albums do this to you?

Wind Whirl by Powers / Pulice / Rolin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm1ghH8BZZc

Javier Segura - Malagueñas 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHdumg_FBUU

Craig Leon - She Wears A Hemispherical Skull Cap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhiSsIBXoGQ

There are some good examples of this on Camaraderie's thread: post ambient/drone/noise tracks that sound like Surgeon's remix of "Mogwai Fear Satan: ITT post ambient/drone/noise tracks that sound like Surgeon's remix of "Mogwai Fear Satan"

These tracks tend to be about density and the sound tearing at the fabric of the sonic field. I don't *exclusively* mean this thing, but they do create the feelings I'm talking about.

Definitely this.

The manner in which the riff fades up at the beginning makes me feel like some vast ship approaching slowly and passing, the first half of the riff is slightly different in the way it subdivides the 6/8 rhythm and creates this weird tension which stops it just being some sort-of simple sequenced part, it sways a bit unsteadily. And of course, all the building up with choirs and strange noises into a big wash makes me totally zone out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI5srQNCmW0

Stuff like Phil Cohran's 'On the Beach', Meredith Monk's 'Dolmen Music', or Marvin Gaye's 'Inner City Blues' transport me to an undefined "elsewhere". I feel like the query is maybe too loosely defined and the answers will be quite personal - which can also be the point. I think there are many examples, especially 70s, especially long-form but not only. For a shorter song: Novos Baianos' 'Misterio Do Planeta' and that last guitar solo.

Maybe it has become somewhat of a lost art form now that artists (and audience) are either too intentional or cynical to look for those trance-like feelings and build songs in ascending "stages". Maybe we feel we have nowhere to go anymore. Not that you can't do otherworldly in more "horizontal" forms of course, let's say Gillian Welch's 'Revelator'.

Would a raga scratch this itch?

Sarah Davachi & Ariel Kalma - Adieu La Vie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Xdkrlcmxk

Eternal Tapestry - Lace Fern
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh6DKktVix0

Circle - Lokki
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JaYMfbDikc

Geogaddi as an album experience doesn’t cause like dissociation or anything but it’s cumulative effect is profoundly unsettling to me.

Manuel Göttsching - Inventions for Electric Guitar

this doesn't tear at the soundfield, it's much quieter (though high overtone twinkles exist at the edge of my hearing abilities) - but was the first thing that came to mind when i thought of bliss and disassociation. i have a lovely memory of doing some yoga to it outside in a beautiful desert oasis. wow that sentence is very yoga bitch lol.

jim o'rourke - steamroom 40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSS1674NZVc

part of the magic of it for me is how it very slowly comes into being.

Thanks to those who took this in good faith. Realising now that 'dissociation' is far from a neutral term and I could have been more mindful of that (let alone fkn spelling it correctly in the header).

Naledi is right in that I could have been clearer with the parameters. I was thinking of 3 things, I guess.
1) Things that build from a quiet base and gradually layer instruments/volume and build to a crescendo (however contextually slow/slight that might be (much like map's Jim O'Rourke example above).
2) Music that is sonically overwhelming and bursts at the edges of the available sound field.
3) Lengthy excursions that, like meditation, can induce dissociative states (modal jazz, ragas, Steamroom).

Key impact: it feels like the top of your head might come off and all rainbows might fly everywhere out of your brain pan.

Equally conscious that this could be a conservative idea of blissful, and discounts harsh noise and improv so want to acknowledge that. I can find a lot of that stuff anxiety-inducing.

i gotta say i hadn't heard that circle track before and it sounds hella good just kind of scrolling through.

the track that for real has made me feel like you're describing in the last few years, chinaski, is king gizzard and the lizard wizard's "dripping tap". it starts loud and just gets louder. it's a massive tear your head off funtime rollercoaster. it isn't jazz or ambient but kind of on the krautrock tip, which is definitely music that can make me feel this way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDMldn7hFZo

oh and the rainbows flying out of your brain pan too. in a way that kind of feels like cheating somehow.

some kind of deep witchy magic about that circle track "lokki" what a jam

yeah i love it! so many psychedelic layers drifting in and out

Co-sign on “Lokki.” The live version from “Raunio” is distinctive and equally incredible.

more bliss:
Boredoms - Super Coming
Lochi - New Wave of Acid Techno
DJ Guy - BX90 Tape (Side 1) Trk 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twpDAmN5nks

This Circle track rules.
I need a King Giz 'phase'. Maybe I need to get the right drugs and lock myself away for a week.

This is a very similar type of description to what James Holden and Waclaw Zimpel talk about trying to achieve: trance, Gnawa music, spiritual hat jazz. The Universe Will Take Care of You.

You Man - Birdcage

Terry Riley - Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgIT5xh1nJE

i am very excited for / appreciative of this thread, thank you for starting it, Chinaski

Np alpine static!

I said noise wasn't really my thing but well, Yellow Swans are different.

Yellow Swans - Opt Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmwyj4DvOO4

Also, yes to Poppy Nogood CaAL!

Onto the upthread mention of Geogaddi, I would add “Telephasic Workshop” from Music Has the Right to Children.

Aidan Baker - Shadow of Death / Dream On (set here to a slowed and flipped version of ILM's favorite music video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXXmWvH4ScQ

Also very excited about this thread! The description in the thread title and a number of those in the comments definitely get at one of my favorite sensations/feelings evoked by some music. Another quote to throw into the mix: "I am glad to the brink of fear." - Emerson

A few that come to mind along the "Music that is sonically overwhelming and bursts at the edges of the available sound field" kind of way, although tbh the first two of these songs are...maybe more anxiety inducing than bliss inducing imo.

Junior Boys - Last Exit (Fennesz Mix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7z-XWwDq-U

Lovesliescrushing - Crushing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTL5mr50QQU

And a few that are more bliss inducing:

Bardo Pond - Tommy Gun Angel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyo7eHkQjJw

Jane Remover - Contingency Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRjquszSFsA

Can't wait to hear what else gets posted here!

Aidan Baker - Shadow of Death / Dream On

Aidan Baker lives in this space. I was going to recommend Nadja's "Ossification"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp-nOwhGDnk

Big chunks of this record zone me out hugely, shame it's not more well-known, Earache's worst-selling record, apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZJSNMhnrHo

Actually, "Clinodactyl" is the song I was thinking of off that album.

Oh my God, Old's Formula is one of my all-time favorites. There's some great stuff on Plotkin's Joy of Disease album, too.. this song, "Fuzzy", fits the thread I think..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE_7FPxT4eU

i've been realizing that this is one of my favorite things music can do, which is why all of the things that come to mind are things i feel like i've gone on about here over the years. music that sort of stops time and open a portal to a higher state of consciousness, to use the well-worn phrase. one of the ways that can really happen for me is through a kind of stillness or minimalism. where holding relatively still opens up the sound field. i think the synth work of eliane radigue - both the effect of it and the intent of it - is very much about this. trilogie de la mort is the one i've listened to the most in that vein.

eliane radigue - kailasha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T31wuVSG1Zc

kevin drumm is mostly known as a noise artist but when he gets minimal, i think he's doing similar things (honestly even when he's really noisy). his sound field is always very deep and open-ended and asks you to listen. all 2.5 hours of tannenbaum is like this but i've always especially liked the first track, "night side" (61 minutes), which is just beautiful, i don't really know what to say about it.

kevin drumm - tannenbaum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlizdOqSbcM

I've always* loved this kind of thing, too. I also really love when, on an album or mix, one of these songs is followed by something short, quiet, and intimate.

*probably not until my first good drug experience tbh

A rock climbing friend once told me that he found dissociative bliss when climbing because there's no allowance for intrusive thoughts. Everything else just disappears because letting it in will kill you. With that perspective, Water Damage and Party Dozen may not kill you but when I'm listening to them there's no room for anything else. My new favorite discoveries this year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYKA8dz9VUw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmFUEzX9GJQ

Also at https://waterdamageatx.bandcamp.com and https://party-dozen.bandcamp.com

The Necks do this for me, I guess - frequently live, when they can move from a gentle minimalism to a juddering noise that seems somehow to breathe - have definitely felt reality shift off its axis during many of their shows

The effect is less pronounced on their records I spose but some of the live ones might give a taste of it - and conversely records like Ether or Mosquito are transportive via a version of the stillness and minimalism that map invokes above (not quite as minimal as Eliane R tho!)

Great thread! Nothing to add, but loving the suggestions.

this talk about not letting anything else in...that's how I always felt about this song from Skullflower. They started as a post-melvins sludgy noise rock kind of thing and eventually progressed to some kind of post uk prog improv thing and in the middle they did this more dead C style of stuff and I had some moments in college where I was VERY depressed and I'd play this song at top volume and like, it wasn't something that could make me happy or make me sad, it was just so much that it left no room for my own emotions or something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5_d0OBbS58

A lot of the "noise" stuff I listened to in college touches on this thread, some of it much noisier than a lot of what's been discussed here, but also ethereal and beautiful. Richard Youngs and Simon Wickham Smith were responsible for a lot of it. Matthew Bower of Skullflower's solo project, the even more "experimental" Total as well.

bower went full fash which i think is a mental health issue.
music that does this for me is rarely full on all the time, although alan silva's "luna surface" kinda works
usually i find i need some kind of falling apart / coming back together / tension-release dialogue for this to happen - like when field recording unexpectedly align with composed elements.
tetsu inoue's "world" receiver is top tier
german collagist "kink gong" achieves something grand on "imer zeillos" as he collages & tape speeds recordings of SE Asian music with turkish saz etc
the bits is morton feldman recording where after half an hour of irresolute angsting, he finally lets us have some melodic release
some hafler trio, some christophe charles
anthony braxton, partic comp96

*the bits in

nothing beats going to listen to ponds full of fire-bellied toads, though

Food Pyramid - E Harmony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIUytc9l0NU

I remember Bower having some blog posts that were leaning into some shitty politics but didn’t know how far it’d gone.

was just revisiting an ambient mix i made for a website a few years ago, and man, this one made me close my eyes and sent a shiver up my spine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nJ71mbpjJo

the mix: https://future-feed.net/trache-the-horizon-ambient-mix-by-dj-trees/

Most recent "disassociative bliss" record has been Ki Oni's A Leisurely Swim to Everlasting Life
https://kioni.bandcamp.com/album/a-leisurely-swim-to-everlasting-life

the bits is morton feldman recording where after half an hour of irresolute angsting, he finally lets us have some melodic release

oh god yes

Thread delivers multiple times over. My current favourite is the Ki Oni record.

A lot of this stuff is missing from the streamers, but I'll make a playlist when I get a chance.

a lot of stuff on oneohtrix point never's rifts comp hits this spot for me, waves of warm sparkling synths overlapping

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCMi9_6vnxk

https://catchwaveltd.bandcamp.com/track/la-maison-des-5-l-ments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-OHTj4xcgg

Sonically, this is a beautiful trip as it is. I love the way the voices get subsumed in the noise and re-emerge as the track subsides. The fact that it's about William Walker, one of my favourite obscure heroes, only adds to it. Short version: During WW1, Walker dived in a 200-lb diving suit beneath the foundations of Winchester Cathedral to shore up the retrochoir (it's built on land with a high water table; the crypt still floods a few months each year). It took Walker the best part of FOUR years.

Petrels - Concrete: https://petrels.bandcamp.com/track/concrete

(Long version of the Walker story: https://mountain7.co.uk/2017/01/14/william-walker-a-quiet-hero/)

Geogaddi as an album experience doesn’t cause like dissociation or anything but it’s cumulative effect is profoundly unsettling to me.

Yeah - and honestly Tomorrow's Harvest is this but even more so for me. I've listened to it multiple times in its stated location of inspiration: the Mojave Desert, and it really does capture the sheer desolation and beauty of the desert, which certainly translates seamlessly to our 21st century dystopian landscape. The cover art/location is certainly prescient.

Laraaji's Bring On the Sun and Ocean Flow Zither from his album Bring On The Sun are this for me. I actually put together a playlist on Spotify that's basically a mix of blissful disassociation I made for friends dealing with anxiety and stress.

Hidden Nook from Powers/Pulice/Rolin is tremendous.

Sonic Youth's The Diamond Sea was an introduction to "this" and as far as a rock song goes, it does a pretty good job

Ralph Vaughan Williams - the lark ascending

what's with the enormous hiss on that recording?

Nothing to add at this point other than that I'm loving the recommendations here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwpFBWZARWo

A lot of this stuff isn't on the streamers but here's a playlist, such as it is:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0bdEZYORNT20rS6Iz9E5ez?si=e12e7b54fab24819

Gauche use of Spotify link kills thread.

In an attempt to revive... Jefre Cantu-ledesma'new track 'Summer's End' is in this zone, I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCzWPeTwHO4

Gauche use of Spotify link kills thread.

Glad someone else said it so I didn't have to

Haha. Mea culpa.