Dark Ambient · GenresWhat is dark ambient?
Dark ambient is a subgenre of ambient music that features foreboding, ominous, or discordant overtones. Dark ambient emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of new synthesizer and sampling technology in the electronic music genre and other technical advances in music.
About dark ambient
Dark ambient is a diverse genre, related to industrial music, noise, ethereal wave, and black metal, yet generally free from derivatives and connections to other genres or styles.
From Last.fm, where 35,610 listeners have tagged music as dark ambient.
Artists to start with
Albums to hear first
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
Purifying Fire
Heresy
The Starwheel
Hlidskjalf
Black Earth
Daudi Baldrs
Burning FleshDark Ambient songs
- The Darkness That Lurks in Our Mind by Akira Yamaoka
- Perverts by Ethel Cain
- Rundgang um die transzendentale Säule der Singularität by Burzum
- White Noiz by Akira Yamaoka
- Never Forgive Me, Never Forget Me by Akira Yamaoka
- The Day of Night by Akira Yamaoka
- The Beautiful Days by Swans
- Betrayal by Akira Yamaoka
- Gwely Mernans by Aphex Twin
- Dunkelheit by Burzum
Dark Ambient on Risocast
White LightSidewalks and Skeletons · 2015
Minecraft - Volume BetaC418 · 2013
Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Expanded Edition)Aphex Twin · 2024
Selected Ambient Works Volume IIAphex Twin · 1994
A I A: Alien ObserverGrouper · 2011
Goth (Slowed + Reverb)Sidewalks and Skeletons · 2023
ExorcismSidewalks and Skeletons · 2022
Private LifeTempers · 2019
Living RoomGrouper
Neighbouring genres
In the ambient & downtempo family. All genres
ambientdowntempochillwaveambient popambient houseambient technoambient dubdrone doomdrone metallo-fi housepsychillspace ambientQuestions
- What is dark ambient?
- Dark ambient is a subgenre of ambient music that features foreboding, ominous, or discordant overtones. Dark ambient emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of new synthesizer and sampling technology in the electronic music genre and other technical advances in music. Dark ambient is a diverse genre, related to industrial music, noise, ethereal wave, and black metal, yet generally free from derivatives and connections to other genres or styles.
- Who are the best-known dark ambient artists?
- By Last.fm listening: The Caretaker, Ethel Cain, Khel, P.T. Adamczyk, Burzum and Wilt.
- What genres are similar to dark ambient?
- On Risocast it sits with ambient, downtempo, chillwave, ambient pop, ambient house and ambient techno.
Risocast is free. Install it once and it logs everything you play.
Updated 6 October 2026
Risocast HelpA music log that fills itself in. It records the songs you play on your computer and your phone, turns them into your top songs, stats and a public profile, and finds people whose taste overlaps with yours.
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More in Help, the guides and the privacy policy.
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