Inspirational Music for Dark Conspiracy

[ReHerakhte]

If you don't mind a little trawling of the web, iTunes, the Microsoft store etc. etc., a group called Black Rain was originally called upon to supply the soundtrack to the Johnny Mnemonic movie but Sony decided they wanted a much more highly commercial soundtrack (for album sales I suppose).

All the tracks they composed for the movie that I have heard are specifically meant for cyberpunk, I have a few (but not all of them) and I think I got them from iTunes. The album I bought is a compilation titled "Now I'm Just A Number: Soundtracks 1994-95". It lists seven songs although I would not class any of them as "songs" - there's no singing as such, plenty of ambient noise, some talking even but mostly it's cyberpunk inspired "musical sound" for want of a better description.
Do a net search for the album name and you should find a few vendors for digital download.

Also the soundtracks to the computer games Satellite Reign and Auto Assault are similarly ambient, moody tracks although Satellite Reign being a cyberpunk themed game (it's considered a spiritual successor to the Syndicate Wars game if you're familiar with that title) is obviously more cyberpunk styled. I believe some of the tracks are able to be listened to on paces like YouTube.
The soundtrack can be bought from Good Old Games here https://www.gog.com/game/satellite_reign_soundtrack but you'll need to make an account with them to buy anything. I think there might be a few other digital download vendors but I didn't search for them as I have the soundtrack from when I got the game

The Auto Assault soundtrack by Richard Dekkard (speaking of cyberpunk, that name, BladeRunner anyone...), was composed for an online, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi styled vehicle combat game. Personally I love every track and it's been on every music player and computer I've had, again, I got the soundtrack when I bought the game but the publishers killed it after only a year or two because it wasn't getting a subscription base like the fantasy MMOs at the time...
if you want to get it yourself you'll have to do a websearch and find someone whose distributing it for free.
It has 19 tracks composed by Dekkard and should run for just over 50 minutes, if you want the whole thing.

EDIT: To make it clear, the soundtrack was included in the Limited Edition version of the game.
Or if you're feeling like taking a chance, copies of the game are sometimes for sale on Amazon.com but may or may not have the soundtrack CD. The good news is that because the game is long dead, copies of the game are selling for about US$1 to $4 for a "new" game - the soundtrack is easily worth US$20-25 but because it was created specifically for the game and the game publishers didn't bother to make it available separately when they killed the game, it is not available for sale on CD or as digital download anywhere as far as I know.
And again, some of the tracks are available on YouTube to listen to.
AND MORE EDIT: Also, some good news, I have just found that the Microsoft store sells the soundtrack for US$10 here: -
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/m ... 6kgx76fnm9

[Morthrai]

I recently found what I think is the perfect DC soundtrack, especially if you - like me - see the setting as perpetually stuck in a late 80's/early 90's time warp. Called Charles Park III by Makeup and Vanity Set it is a great homage to John Carpenter's unique minimalist style of music (I don't know if this intentional or not but it's hard to think it isn't if you've heard the soundtracks of Escape from New York or Assault on Precinct 13).

Speaking of such things I can heartily recommend this nifty John Carpenter tribute: https://retropromenade.bandcamp.com/album/carpenter

[Linden]

I saw Austin, Texas band Survive a few weeks back when they played Bristol. They're very much in that minimalist John Carpenter vein - I think they're on the sound track to the Stranger Things TV series. Listening to their albums before I went to the gig I thought they were ok, but live they were really good. Actually added a an extra dimension to their sound which is perhaps a little flat on record. Sort of band I can imagine playing in a club in a DC campaign. Lots of dry ice!

[Marcus Bone]

Lots of dry ice!

Can't ever have too much dry ice!

[scottm]

I don't expect my Dark Conspiracy play list to be extremely popular with the rest of you, but I play it whenever I write anything for the game.

Foo Fighters - Down in the Park
Matrix Reloaded - various tunes
Rush (Tom Sawyer, Subdivisions, The Analog Kid, Dreamline, Distant Early Warning, Force Ten, New World Man, )
Ann Scott (Love is in him, from Citadels soundtrack)
Rammstein
Deadmau5
Blur
Thom Yorke
Billy Idol (cyberpunk tunes)
Black Sabbath (master of reality and Paranoid tunes)
Nine Inch Nails
Dead Letter Circus
System of a Down
Snog
Crow Soundtrack tunes
Chevelle
APC
Tool
STabbing Westward
Genesis (various songs from Duke - cul de sac, man of our times)
Editors
Deftones
Cure (pornography, disintegration, bloodflowers tunes)
Catherine Wheel (chrome tunes)
Apex Theory
Alice in Chains
Phantogram

[ReHerakhte]

I dunno Scott, I have a sneaking suspicion that a few people here might be listening to many of the same groups as you
I listen to about half the ones you've listed and some of the others have me curious enough to check them out. I too really like the Foo Fighters cover of Down in the Park but then I've been a fan of the original for a long time as well!

[Morthrai]

Scott, I'm with Kevin on this one. There's a lot in your list that I enjoy too!

I have to say that when I am trying to write my playlist has a lot of non-vocal music, from classical right through to modern electronica and all points in between. This is due to my bad habit of bursting into "song" on some of my fave tunes and breaking concentration

[Phulish]

NIN's "Golgotha Tenement" from "The Crow", and Stone Temple Pilots "What the Hell Have I?" from "Last Action Hero" are DC appropriate.

[Linden]

Listening to the Talking Heads live album Stop Making Sense it occured to me the track Life During Wartime seemed to be describing a dystopian, Dark Conspiracy style America and the narrator with his rootless, clandestine lifestyle could be even be a minion hunter.

[Morthrai]

Listening to the Talking Heads live album Stop Making Sense it occured to me the track Life During Wartime seemed to be describing a dystopian, Dark Conspiracy style America and the narrator with his rootless, clandestine lifestyle could be even be a minion hunter.

The SF book of the same title by Lucius Shepard also contains Dark Conspiracy-relevant material; an alternative future war with psychic super-soldiers, and shadowy powers manipulating an extended Cold War. Worth a read and definitely belongs in the DC inspirational library.

Also, I love Talking Heads

[ReHerakhte]

I was going to ask if there was any chance that the novel inspired the song but I see that the song was released in 1979 while the novel was released in 1987.
Still, an interesting coincidence that the two share common themes and not just the title.

[ReHerakhte]

Revisiting this thread while listening to music on my computer and I realize that I never mentioned another group that I have in my collection This Morn' Omina or TMO for short.
Various sites describe TMO as mixing Dark Ambient, Rhythmic Noise, Techno, Psy-trance, Tribal, Experimental and Industrial styles into a new, unique sound. I really like some of their tracks and one of them was used as a background track for the website for CthulhuTech.

The track is called Suneater, (I bought the album on the strength of that one track) and you can listen to it here.
While it obviously won't suit most situations, I really like the vibe given off by some of the dialogue, "There won't be another thousand years" and "I pray for you all", quite appropriate for a track titled Suneater.

[ReHerakhte]

And now that the music player on my computer has just started this track, I would also suggest any of the tracks done by Tangerine Dream for the soundtrack to the movie Risky Business.
Actually, there's a lot of tracks by Tangerine Dream that I'd use, if I could only find the albums for sale (e.g. the soundtrack to the movie The Keep).