Only two days have passed since I began my vacation, and I’m already feeling mellow. My brain is slowing down, as I would imagine the molecules of freezing water slowing as they approach the tipping point between liquid and solid. Time is passing, but the firing of neurons in my head are becoming muffled, and so time is beginning to feel like something that happens to other people, but not to me. I am entering a kind of stasis.
Part of me relishes this experience, and part of me is disturbed by it. While wallowing in the absence of any need to act, I am not yet entirely comfortable. Why is this? I know why. It’s because daily life in the Western world makes no room for mellowness, except grudgingly. You can make your own room for it, but in my case there’s a nagging fear that if I become completely mellow, I will be crushed like a line of ants in the path of a steamroller. While you meander at the pace of universal entropy, something or someone else is at the steamroller’s controls and doesn’t give a rat’s ass about your inner peace.
Is this a sickness or simply a clear-eyed recognition of the way the world works?
Where was I? Oh yeah, feeling mellow. I haven’t been listening to metal, because it has dawned on me that I have almost no metal that’s mellow. The only recent thing that comes to mind is Devin Townsend’s Ghost. I may listen to that. Surely I have something else that will suit my current mood, something that will ease my irrational worries and aid me in the honeyed slide into . . . mellowness. Do you have any ideas? (more after the jump . . .)
That’s the question I’d like to ask. And come to think of it, there’s no good reason to confine this question to the State of Metal. Just tell this — what do you listen to when you want to become mellow? Or when you’re already mellow, and you want to enhance the feeling of mellowness, when you want to push away the nagging anxieties of the daily shitstorm and simply . . . be who you are, without interference from anything outside your mind.
And by the way, if you get what you need in order to reach or enhance that state from music that’s a fiery maelstrom of end-of-the-world explosiveness, well, I’m not ruling that out either.
Comments. Please.
33 Responses to “MELLOWNESS”
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Just yesterday I did some mellowing with Agents of Oblivion. http://youtu.be/BJ0LxW-ExFk
Yeah, I remember my first real vacation, a short stint in the Bahamas. Getting pissed that restaurant service was so slow. Finally had someone explain “Island Time” to us…it took a while for us to get the idea that ‘vacation’ meant ‘take it easy’.
When I want to enhance mellowness I tend to listen to stuff like Agalloch, Negura Bunget, doom in general – anything slow but still heavy. For those moments when I really want to chill the fuck out I sometimes resort (HA HA GET IT) to folk metal without the metal part.
See what pisses me off is the idea that just because I’m on vacation my time isn’t valuable. Wasting time in a restaurant isn’t my idea of how I want to spend my vacation, if I’ve flown all the way to some godforsaken island somewhere chances are there are things I want to see and do there, I have a limited amount of vacation so fuck your island time and bring me my god-damned burger.
Like what has already been said by others, I tend to think of mellow stuff as the slower, and more ambient stuff.
Abyssic Hate’s “Suicidal Emotions” comes to mind. So does Carrier Flux’s “Introspective Nightmare” (although this might not be mellow enough for some)
Listening to Abyssic Hate now, and it’s great. A long-running one-man black metal band from Australia, who knew? Well, you did, obviously. Listening to this and reading Trollfiend’s comment above reminded me that I do really enjoy melodic black metal when I feel like getting in a dreamy frame of mind. Agalloch and Negura Bunget were good reminders. I also thought of this song from Winterfellyth, which I love:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvF1v8DTrJY
And this one from Burzum’s “Belus” album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKCgV__C-Lw
lol #firstworldproblems
Insomnium is making feel mellow at the moment.
First Aid Kit and Shearwater also are good for mellowing.
As is eleven hundred springs and Hank III’s Rising Outlaw.
Thorr’s Hammer (who I found here) is doomy mellow.
And, of course, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
Oh! And the Yoshida Brothers!
Wow, now that’s a fuckin discovery. I just watched this, which was the first youtube hit on the Yoshida Bros:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RERXiliJfdI
Way cool.
Wow. That’s impressive!
Holy shit. This was a related vid on that one. http://youtu.be/aVvqFqITYlY
Acid Witch makes for prime mellowing.
Excellent choice.
It probably says more about me, but Anaal Nathrakh REALLY levels me out when I need to mellow.
I’ll think of some ACTUAL mellow stuff for you asap.
Solstafir, off the top of my head. And Anathema.
As of lately, Solstafir without a moment of hesitation!
Other personal top options e.g :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd8w6VBYDHM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QYQGh8-F24
Also pretty much any of the more slower songs of Ghost Brigade, or a certain Finnish reggae artist.
It’s all sunshine ‘n rainbows, baby!
How did I not remember this?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liw4OlU_r8o
Though most of the mellowness comes out of the link between the song and the Finnish tv-show, Madventures.
And now that I think of it, why not some EToS, with abit more metal in it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz5LbdAc6Yc
Also I listen to a lot of Everlast when I’m feeling mellow. Acoustic guitar, soporific beats and a whiskey-soaked voice.
Stupid of me not to mention Solstafir, since I’ve been enthralled by their new album. But as much as I love Anaal Nathrakh, they aren’t my idea of mellow. I think you made need to get your brain wiring re-done so it meets code.
Came heavily recommended by Joe Nally of Chapters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bAUK-aoqt8
Total mellow.
Hell yeah, that Mono was very nice. I also found a couple of other good ones in a similar vein from the vidz on the right side of your link. Mogwai (“Take Me Somewhere Nice”), and Sigur Ros – “Sæglópur” (which I especially like):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHO6pbjQ9ec&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgEGVKwURKc&feature=related
Oceansize.
Khuda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcAIpG6OeaE
But what really mellows me out is some Creedence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAVhKjsImeI
LOve me some Creedence! The Khuda is quite cool, too.
http://listen.20buckspin.com/track/the-book-of-kings
This.
I resort to stuff like Opeth’s softer songs on “Ghost Reveries” like “Isolation Years.” I also listen to some songs that are one of a kind on an album, like Death’s “Voice of the Soul” or Gojira’s “Unicorn.” One time I tried to get into meditation via doom metal… or doom metal via meditation… I was trying to get into both things at once I suppose, and I was quite relaxed by a song by Dark Castle. But yeah, my mellow go-to band is Opeth.
When I wanna mellow out I’ll usually throw on things in the drone/doom spectrum UFUmammut, Boris, Electric Wizard, Acid King, etc.
There’s also a pretty rare album I picked up called “Krushevo” by Vlatko Stefanovski & Miroslav Tadic… it’s all instrumental acoustic guitar; reminds me a lot of Behemoth’s acoustic sections on “Demigod”
IK think this is essentially what cascadian black metal is for! Wolves and Agalloch make me feel SO mellow.
I really like listening to Lantlos’ Neon, Alcest’s Souvenirs D’un Autre Monde, Devin Townsend’s Ki, some Zeppelin, the Halo soundtracks, Sigur Ros’ ( ), and anything by Ulcerate.
“Planet Caravan” by Black Sabbath.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW3pZjmS3rg
Another easy recommendation I can’t believe you don’t know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGIA6QXkRC0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtB549ToKqo
heavily doom influenced melodeath. It’s massive and weighty yet very laid back.
Josquin, Palestrina, Victoria, Tallis, maybe Landini… I’m a Classical musician moonlighting in metal. Check these guys out – it’s powerful, intelligent, and very relaxing music.
Can’t believe I forgot this…
Thrice – The Alchemy Index Volume 2: Water
“Digital Sea” is just… yes.
Found the perfect mellow for you – Agalloch opened up a Bandcamp with some of their acoustic instrumentals, some ambient pieces and a long progressive instrumental.
(Shameless self-promotion alert) I added it to the blog here http://metalbandcamp.com/2011/11/agalloch-rarities-and-limited.html
Oh you beat me to the punch! I saw that this morning and was planning to do a quick post about it . . . and then my morning blogging time ran out.