Will Savino

The Realm of an Outer God, of the Lovecraft Kind

Added 2021-07-16 13:36:27 +0000 UTC

But nothing I could say could even adumbrate the loathsome, unholy, non-human, extra-galactic horror and hatefulness and unutterable evil of that forbidden spawn of black chaos and illimitable night.

-H.P. Lovecraft "Out of the Aeons

This month's winner of the track request poll was discord user Phratzz with their request of "The Realm of an Outer God, of the Lovecraft Kind." Just a few month ago, y'all voted for "Lovecraftian Horror Breaking Through Dimensional Walls," so I guess you're just clamoring for more cosmic horror tunes in general. Well, I didn't want to retread old territory, so this track is way less rhythmically oriented, and much more purely out there.

The thing with "Outer Gods" (or any true cosmic horror) is that the fear comes not from their random tentacles and massive size, but from the complete unknowability of these beings. They are not creatures to surmount; you don't fight an eldritch God. Their mere existence should evoke total terror and madness into the hearts of lowly humans who lie in a categorically different tier of existence. As such, it would feel cheap to try to make "terrestrial" music to evoke their home realms. I had to make something far stranger.

So with that, here's "The Dee'p," an ambient warbling soundscape meant to be mostly unrecognizable as traditional music. Aleatoric clicks, pops, whooshes, and whines pervade, and while there are a mix of synths, real instruments, and samples, I've tried as hard as possible to blur the lines between them. This is a soundscape of pure madness, after all! Part Ligeti, part Disasterpeace, part Stockhausen. And while the prompt here was "realm of an Outer God," you could probably get away with using this for other extremely scary dungeons, horror scenes, or perversely illusory psychological manipulations.

If you want something with a bit more traditional orchestration, I made a purely acoustic rendition of this track (weird, right?) that's available at the Artist Tier and up. I've also got looping versions of both tracks over there. Thanks so much, and have a great day!