Lustmord

Brian Williams is a Welsh industrial musician, sound designer and film score composer. He is often credited for creating the dark ambient genre with albums recorded under the name Lustmord. His experimental work has been described as "not traditionally 'musical'" with "more clearly visual aspects".[3]

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

Lustmord
Lustmord playing at Norbergfestival, 2011.
Background information
Birth nameBrian Williams
OriginNorth Wales[1][2]
GenresDark ambient
Occupation(s)Musician
InstrumentsSynthesizer, programming
Years active1980–present[2]
LabelsHydra Head, Soleilmoon
Associated actsTool, Isis, Puscifer, SPK, Melvins
Websitelustmord.com

Biography

Williams was raised in rural Wales, before relocating to London in his late teens. In London, Williams befriended Throbbing Gristle members Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter, who urged him to make his own music.[1] He started recording as Lustmord in 1980 before joining SPK in 1982.[4][5] Lustmord has extracted field recordings made in crypts, caves, and slaughterhouses, and combined it with occasional ritualistic incantations and Tibetan horns. His treatments of acoustic phenomena encased in digitally expanded bass rumbles have a dark ambient quality. Some of Lustmord's most notable collaborations include Robert Rich on the critically acclaimed[6] Stalker, Jarboe, John Balance of Coil, Monte Cazazza, Clock DVA, Chris & Cosey, Paul Haslinger, and experimental sludge group Melvins on Pigs of the Roman Empire. He worked with Tool again in 2019, providing the ocean and wave sound effects on the track "Descending" on their album Fear Inoculum.

Williams released the album Heresy, considered a milestone of the genre of dark ambient,[7] in 1990.

Williams collaborated with Graeme Revell and Paul Haslinger to contribute as "musical sound designer"[3] and occasionally as additional composer to 44 Hollywood film soundtracks, most notably on The Crow and Underworld.

Lustmord worked on Tool's DVD singles and remixed versions of "Schism" and "Parabola," which were released on 20 December 2005. Lustmord also contributed to Tool's 2006 album 10,000 Days with the atmospheric storm sounds on the title track, "10,000 Days". He later worked again with Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan, collaborating on Keenan's project Puscifer debut album "V" is for Vagina, as well as providing several remixes for "V" is for Viagra. The Remixes. Lustmord eventually generated a collection of dub remixes of several tracks from "V" is for Vagina known as "D" Is for Dubby - The Lustmord Dub Mixes. The nine track LP was released as a digital download on 17 October 2008, available directly from the Puscifer website. He also did some additional music including the track "The Western Approaches" feat. Wes Borland on guitar for the documentary Blood into Wine.

Lustmord released the album [ O T H E R ] on California-based label Hydra Head Records in July 2008. It features guest appearances by Adam Jones, King Buzzo, and Aaron Turner.

Live performances

Lustmord appeared live for the first time in 25 years as part of the high mass observance by the Church of Satan. The ceremony took place on 6 June 2006.[1][8] A recording of the performance titled Rising was released. Lustmord himself noted that the offer was "one of those things that was just too funny to say 'no' to".[9]

Lustmord performed for the second time in 29 years at Unsound Festival Kraków on 22 October 2010.[10]

Lustmord performed at Art's Birthday celebration (initiated by Robert Filliou) at Södra Teatern in Stockholm, Sweden, on 15 January 2011.[11] He performed at the Unsound Festival in New York for the first time on 9 and 10 April 2011.[12] Lustmord's first performance in the Netherlands was in September 2011 at the Incubate Festival.

Lustmord played for the first time in Moscow, Russia, on 8 April 2012, at Cinema 35mm. Bad Sector played the first act of show.

Video games

Around 1999, Lustmord was also involved with the video game Planescape: Torment—his work eventually went unused when the project changed direction.[13] He provided music and sound design for a variety of other projects since, such as Far Cry Instincts, Underworld or NVIDIA demos, many of which include collaborations with Haslinger.[14] He was also involved with the 2003 game Master of Orion. In 2015 he composed the soundtrack for Evolve with Jason Graves.[15][16]

Films

Lustmord composed the soundtrack for the 2017 film First Reformed[17] and the 2020 film The Empty Man.[18]

Personal life

In early 1990s, Williams relocated to California from London with his wife Tracey, who is a fabricator at Legacy Effects. He is an atheist[1] and has noted that while his ominous music gives an impression to some people that he's "somehow dark and [he] live[s] in a castle or in a dungeon", and that he's "very serious about certain aspects of [his] work", he's "not that serious about [himself]".[9]

Discography
Year Title Label
1981 Lustmørd Sterile Records SR 3
1982 Lustmordekay Sterile Records cassette SRC 6
1984 CTI (with Chris & Cosey)
1985 Vhutemas / Arechetypi (with Graeme Revell)
1986 Paradise Disowned Soleilmoon
1988 Machine Gun (as T. G. T.) (single)
1989 Revo (as T. G. T.) (single)
1990 White Stains (as T. G. T.)
1990 Heresy Soleilmoon
1991 A Document of Early Acoustic & Tactical Experimentation
1992 The Monstrous Soul Soleilmoon
1992 Psychological Warfare Technology Systems (as Terror Against Terror) (originally recorded in 1989, not released until 1992)
1993 Crash Injury Trauma (as Isolrubin BK)
1994 The Place Where the Black Stars Hang Soleilmoon
1994 Trans Plutonian Transmissions (as Arecibo)
1995 Stalker (with Robert Rich) Fathom/Hearts of Space
1996 Strange Attractor/Black Star
1997 Lustmord vs. Metal Beast (with Shad T. Scott)
2000 Purifying Fire (collected Works 1996–1998) Soleilmoon
2001 Metavoid Nextera
2002 Law of the Battle of Conquest (with Hecate)
2002 Zoetrope Nextera
2003 Master of Orion 3 Infogrames / Quicksilver
2004 Carbon/Core
2004 Pigs of the Roman Empire (with Melvins)
2006 Rising (live album)
2007 Juggernaut (with King Buzzo)
2008 [ O T H E R ]
2008 "D" is for Dubby – The Lustmord Dub Mixes (by Puscifer)
2009 [ THE DARK PLACES OF THE EARTH ] (remixes)
2009 [ T R A N S M U T E D ] (remixes)
2009 [ B E Y O N D ] (remixes)
2009 [ O T H E R D U B ] (remixes)
2010 Heretic
2011 Songs of Gods And Demons (Collected Works 1994–2007) (Compilation)
2013 Things That Were (Compilation)
2013 The Word as Power
2013 Kraków (22 October 2010) (live album)
2014 Stockholm (15 January 2011) (live album)
2015 Vampillia Meets Lustmord (remixes)
2016 "Dark Matter"
2019 First Reformed

See also

References
  1. Needham, Alex (16 March 2013). "Lustmord: ambient's dark star". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  2. Neyland, Nick (12 June 2013). "Lustmord – "Chorazin" (Extract)". Pitchfork. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  3. 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
  4. Reed, S. Alexander (2013). Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music. Oxford University Press. pp. 145–146. ISBN 9780199832583.
  5. "Lustmord: The Last Heretic". Fact. 3 November 2010. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  6. Brenholts, Jim. "Stalker – Lustmord". AllMusic. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
  7. "Lustmord – Heresy (album review)". Sputnikmusic. 26 October 2009. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
  8. Lustmord Rising, 26 June 2006. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 20 April 2010.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. "Lustmord: By the throat". Resident Advisor.
  10. Lustmord to perform for the second time in 29 years at Unsound Festival Krakow Archived 9 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 19 July 2010.
  11. Lustmord performance, recorded by Swedish national radio. Sverigesradio.se, Retrieved 19 January 2011.
  12. "Unsound". Unsound.pl. Archived from the original on 11 March 2011. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
  13. "L U S T M O R D". L U S T M O R D. 31 July 2001. Archived from the original on 4 May 2009. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
  14. "L U S T M O R D". L U S T M O R D. Archived from the original on 22 May 2011. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
  15. "Lustmord: Evolve". 24 September 2014. Archived from the original on 11 October 2014. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
  16. "A Conversation With Lustmord, The Man Behind The Unique Soundscapes For Evolve". 10 January 2014. Archived from the original on 18 March 2015. Retrieved 6 January 2016.
  17. Samuel Wigley (19 July 2018). "How experimental musicians are reinventing the film score". Bfi.org.uk. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  18. Gingold, Michael (22 October 2020). ""The Empty Man" Goes to Strange, Unexpected Places". Rue Morgue. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
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