Lustmord

This article is about the dark ambient musician. For the crime, see Lust murder.

Lustmord
Lustmord playing at Norbergfestival, 2011.
Lustmord playing at Norbergfestival, 2011.
Background information
Birth nameBrian Williams
OriginNorth Wales[1][2]
GenresDark ambient
OccupationMusician
Instrument(s)Synthesizer, programming
Years active1980–present[2]
LabelsHydra Head, Soleilmoon
Websitelustmord.com

Brian Williams is a Welsh musician, sound designer and film score composer.[3] He has released albums under the name Lustmord starting in the 1980s and through the present.

Williams began as a recording artist within the industrial genre, working with Chris & Cosey and SPK. Shifting his work to Lustmord, Williams continued to employ the threatening aesthetics of industrial, while employing reverb and similar effects to evoke an atmosphere of cosmic horror.[4][5] Starting with the 1989 album Heresy, Lustmord albums have been centered on manipulating sampled recordings with a computer. These samples infamously included field recordings made in locations such as crypts, caves, and slaughterhouses. Williams now downplays the sinister connotations of these locations and says they were picked for "acoustics".[6]

The influence of Williams work on subsequent artists has led critics to call him "a reluctant pioneer of the dark ambient genre who regards his music as neither dark nor ambient."[7]

  1. ^ Needham, Alex (16 March 2013). "Lustmord: ambient's dark star". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  2. ^ a b Neyland, Nick (12 June 2013). "Lustmord – "Chorazin" (Extract)". Pitchfork. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  3. ^ "Brian Williams | Music Department, Composer, Sound Department". IMDb. Retrieved 14 April 2024.
  4. ^ Richardson, John; Gorbman, Claudia; Vernallis, Carol (2013), The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics, Oxford University Press, p. 367, ISBN 978-0-19-973386-6
  5. ^ "The Quietus | Features | Strange World Of... | Mysterium Tremendum: The Strange World Of Lustmord". The Quietus. Retrieved 14 April 2024.
  6. ^ "Lustmord Discusses Three Decades of Dark Ambient Music". self | centered. Retrieved 14 April 2024.
  7. ^ "Where to Begin With Lustmord's Cosmic Ambient". Bandcamp Daily. 26 March 2024. Retrieved 14 April 2024.