by BenSix
“Mood music” attempts to induce or enhance a particular feeling. By this definition, most fits the bill: lush harmonics for the tired and lazing; euphoria for the dancefloor; black, fucking hatred for Norwegian metalheads. It’s all very enriching, but – comfortably premeditated – it can be terribly bad at creating a mood: once you’ve hit such emotional aridity that the full depths of your consciousness can’t move you to feeling, worn routines aren’t going to shatter the burden.
Anti-mood music jars you from whatever funk you’ve been lumped with. It’s nervy, discordant, and varied and striking enough that it presents a vivid contrast to whatever you’re feeling. It hurls you into a maelstrom of tones from which you may emerge with any emotion. Think My Bloody Valentine at their most conflicted; electro at its most unhinged; Syd-era Floyd, with his paranoia bumping up against blissful, woozy melodies…
One of my favourite such bands is Xiu Xiu, an ever-evolving trio from California. Fretful rhythms burst into rich harmonics as easy as distortion (or both); Jamie Stewart gives an overwrought delivery, and lines which cut through the songs like blades…
Posted by Left Outside 
