'Pound'. Music of the 41st Millennium.

[Slave to Darkness]

A while back I read one of the Eisenhorn novels and it mentioned 'Pound' music playing in a nightclub, after a quick google search I found this article http://philipsibbering.com/blog/2010/10/underhive-pound/#more-915 (for those who cant check due to work or whatnot I have copied it here).

 

 

‘Pound’ is a genre of music found in underhives of 40K. It is popular with gangers, scum, and mutants. My first thought of this type of music it that is would be some kind of hard core techno. I quickly dismissed this when I thought about the economy and resources of the Underhive. Modern techno uses sophisticated instruments, amps, and gear that I doubt those in the Underhive would have access to. If they did have access to such gear I suspect if would be rare and not common enough to found a genre of the Underhive music. We are so used to modern technology it is often hard to over look it and think of a world without it. I think the music of the Underhive has to be limited by resources. Back to basics.

 

Thinking of the types of instruments these Underhivers could have, or make, I assume they would have to make it themselves. Stringed instruments are quite difficult to construct, but not impossible. It’s a question of raw materials. Drums are more likely and fit the idea of ‘pound’.

 

If we look for inspiration of human ingenuity in our modern world, the type of music those with nothing make (no money, limited resources, often scavenged materials), is defined by what they can get there hands on. Street drummers who make drums made from containers seems like a good start. I sure the Underhivers could scavenge discarded containers from dumps and convert them to drum.

 

All this would be noisy, yet kinda quiet compared to what I imagine Underhive pound to be like. It needs some serious base. So I figure an old fashioned megaphone/ horn on a massive scale, a ‘megahorn’, would amplify the sound to a suitable level. In keeping with the 40K theme these megahorns could be constructed from scraps of metal with an Ork like aesthetic, riveted together. The sound source could be a drum, perhaps an opening on a large container/ vat, or merely someone pounding away at an iron girder with a club-hammer. There could be multiple megahorns, with many sources all working together, to amplify the faster drumming sections of the troupe (like the street drummers mentioned earlier).

 

The other instrument that is common is the human voice. Obviously something beautiful is a bit out of place in the underhive, so no gospel choir, or opera. Perhaps wailing like a banshee down a megaphone? Drug induced howling from ingesting LSD mushrooms?

 

All combined the Underhive pound could be a mix of booming base, street drumming, and siren like wailing of mind altered singers.

 

How the audience reacts to this type of music is anyone’s guess. While pondering this type of music, and performances, Homer popped into my head and reminded me of ‘Stomp‘ (‘stomp, clomp or some piece of crap’ as Homer put it ). Which made me think of how the audience could interact in the performance. Perhaps something like the Native American Stomp dance.

 

Together with this pounding baseline the audience are stomp dancing. Perhaps they are tribal? Maybe this event has spiritual significance, with some falling into trances? It may introduce the ideas of Voodoo, and perhaps the deep south of America (possible chaos influence too!).

 

In thinking about this we can start to imagine how an Underhive club is put together, that is may be more than a mere ‘nightclub’ to blow off steam, and it may be a spiritual focus for the underhive community. For an RPG we could start to imagine roles, and possibly NPC careers. Singers and musicians would be more akin to priests (High Pound Priest). Which fits the 40K vibe.

 

With so much tribal carry on, emotion, stress, trances, it would be hard to resist adding in a little chaos influence. All this noise reminds me of the noise marines, and perhaps all the emotional energy produced feeds Slaanesh? Slaanesh may augment the sound on a particularly good night. Certain constructions of megahorn: materials, shapes, and decoration, may please Slaanesh more than others, and this may influence the sound is obtained. PCs who listen to it, may be affected in unusual ways.

 

I hope this gives a deeper idea of what something as simple as a throw away line as ‘pound’ could be really like in the underhive, and perhaps something your Players were not expecting – after all: ‘how different could an underhive nightclub really be?’  

 

 

 Personally I don't think it will be 'Tribal sounding' (at least not how we imagine tribal music to sound these days) but more heavy bass electronic music, I imagined it sounding like a Perturbator/Aphex Twin/Psyclon Nine hybrid with some Gabba style elements but HEAVIER.

 

If you have no idea who any of the bands/artists are that I mentioned links are below. 

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52xoRLh2dWw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr0-hZXqzOU

 

 

 

Apart from the Eisenhorn book has it been mentioned anywhere else? It seems a shame if it was just a throwaway comment to set the mood for a grimdark nightclub. What did other Fraeter imagine when they first heard of Pound?

Edited September 15, 2017 by Slave to Darkness

[DuskRaider]

Oh man, I love Perturbator... so the denizens of the 41st millennium listen to gregorian chanting, grindcore, and dark wave? Legit.

[Kinstryfe]

I hadn't heard of this particular bit of floof, but I like it. The obvious disclaimer up front reads: due the to Imperium consisting of untold worlds, it will have influences from untold cultures if you explore the far corners. That out of the way...

The hives are certainly a bleak, hard place to live, but I haven't seen them referenced to as backward technologically. It seems that every ganger can rig together some kind of gun, and Las weaponry is semi common. If the tech is there for that, I have to imagine that there's a lot of power sources that can power electric instruments. Pound, at first, brings to mind a rough, industrial feel. More about intensity than nuance, a way to work out frustrations in a way that will leave fewer people dead than traditional gang warfare. I could see it being used almost as a non-lethal substitute in some underhives, almost like a modern "rap battle", for bragging rights and credibility. It could have roots in the local industrial workforce (chanties in time to the beat of the industrial equipment), or just came about by people in the street trying to stay sane dealing with the THUDs and BANGs of the machinery that surrounds their lives for miles in all directions, trying to express influence over the environment they're stuck in.

 

For some societies I can see it being a spiritual endeavor, and I'm sure more than one gang has gone all kakophonii, splicing amps and sound effects into all of their weaponry (an idea I kind of want to make happen somehow now on the table top). Other more zealous societies may view the noise as carrying their prayers back to holy Terra, with the clergy and nobility implanted with extremely loud vox units to show their status, and the poor working whatever loud noises they can into their prayer in the hopes they will grab the Emperor's attention. Prayer services on these worlds may look like a cross between a modern Catholic mass and an inner city rave, most of the population being near deaf most of their short lives. Counterculture on these worlds could run the inverse to what we are used to. Anarchist gangers run around in purposeful silence, their lips sown shut with rough spikes, their weapons silenced as best they can be, rebelling against the wall of sound under which they live. Cults espousing silence, to better let The Emperor focus on his grand works, lurk in the quieter corners of society, their members working to sabotage the giant stories-high vox repeaters dotted around the hive. Whole generations live, toil, and die under the unstoppable grinding of the Imperial war effort, yelling at the top of their lungs for an uncaring god to give them just a little bit of peace and quiet.

 

Ahem. Sorry. Went a little grimdark there. I like the idea, and would actually like them to explore this kind of thing a lot more in the future.

[joschlumpf]

I guess the music depends on which planet you are. There won´t be one genre and nothing more. Tribals will have their own style as well as feudal worlds and industrial ones.

 

Also as Kinstrye mentioned, hive planets are not technologically impaired. From one of the Necromunda novels (the one about Mad Donna), we know that things like TVshows/movies exists in the everyday life. So I would say, techno is possible. Although personally I just say it´s metal because it works best with the grimdark :P

[Frater Cornelius]

I recon it depends on the eschelon of society as well. I can imagine lower hive gangsters listening to the above as well as parts of the middle class as well, whereas the highest level would listen to classical music in an unconscious attempt to create a semblence of culture. Alternatively, some sort of sythesized music to achieve some sort of musical ecstastisy. We all know how degenerate they are. What the majority of the population that aren't lower hive gangs would listen... good question. Would they even listen to anything? Maybe sythesized things as well, because you are unlike to find actual intruments there. The highst classes have servitors and whatever to produce music. The lower hive gangs would probably make theirs as well. The regular 'consumer' might not have access to it. Depends on the world though. I am sure there is commercial music, but on other worlds I imagine that this is strictly regulated, because Heresy. Heck, maybe their main musica are propaganda chants :D

[Charlo]

Gotta say, that music is ACE and seems perfect for Necromunda.

 

I know what I'm going to put on during my games when it comes out....

[Kastor Krieg]

Generally look into the dark gothic, post coldwave or EBM scene. The second clip you posted is basically what you're looking at if you take the pounding rhythm as the literal core.

 

 

You could also go the rave / goa route, even beginning at the mainstream pieces like Prodigy "Voodoo People". Look at how tribal the depictions of the Escher are and then listen to the track below.

 

 

 

 

 

If string instruments are feasible, the punk / gothic route is viable as well - something akin to dirtier Type 0 Negative?

 

Edited September 15, 2017 by Brother Casman

[walter h]

There are quite a few instruments that would be easily made with items that were thrown away,as the people of the carribbean made steel drums_{. Pipes could be tuned and played like trumpets,flutes. Man has found a way to make music with what ever was just sitting around,also don't forget the soundtrack from " Risky Business".}

[sockwithaticket]

^ To whit, has anyone seen the film Don't Breathe? The DVD extras have a bit about the music which was created by using custom instruments made from random junk. It's wonderfully percussive with an industrial edge. Could see it fitting very well with the description of 'Pound'.

I've also heard some interesting post-hardcore/metalcore remixes of songs like Clouds by Devil Sold His Soul and Deathbed Atheist by Norma Jean which I'd often thought sound like they belong in a sci-fi club.

[Kassill]

Yeah he's a cool primarch....oh wait, you said PERTURBATOR....

Edited September 15, 2017 by Kassill

[Slave to Darkness]

I think as a group project we should start a 'Pound' band lol.

[Dagoth Ur]

 

 

Yeah he's a cool primarch....oh wait, you said PERTURBATOR....

Who knew that Perturabo was secretly a Synthwave lover?

[sockwithaticket]

Been spending too much time with Fabulous Fulgrim I think.

[Marshal Rohr]

Where are the 40k DJs going to get the necessary computer mixing equipment to make any form of electronic music? This reminds me of the thread where Laurie Goulding admonished everyone posting death metal as 'feeling 40k' as childish. Musical preference is too easy to project onto a setting based on personal biases, so ultimately it's as pointless to discuss as which legion is best.

[Adeptus]

Where are the 40k DJs going to get the necessary computer mixing equipment to make any form of electronic music? This reminds me of the thread where Laurie Goulding admonished everyone posting death metal as 'feeling 40k' as childish. Musical preference is too easy to project onto a setting based on personal biases, so ultimately it's as pointless to discuss as which legion is best.

Eh, in Abnett's 40K they're all driving hovercars and messing around on dataslates and whatnot all the time. I can't imagine finding a music mixing 'app' would be out of the question.

 

I imagine on most worlds that music would be very restrained in the mainstream. The Imperium is, after all, a totalitarian religious regime. I think their music scene would more often resemble Europe before the reformation or even Iran after the revolution. Experimental or popular music would be a very 'underground' thing, and groups of people gathering to listen to music and drink and dance would probably all be executed for being heretics or chaos cultists. And honestly, a group of people gathering in an underground fashion to dance, drink and party to awesome 'illegal' music is probably the perfect breeding ground for heretics and chaos cultists.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Adeptus

[Slave to Darkness]

Ahh good old Laurie, I remember his old Industrial Metal project called 'The Commissar', bad 40k influinced music. :lol:

[Marshal Rohr]

 

Where are the 40k DJs going to get the necessary computer mixing equipment to make any form of electronic music? This reminds me of the thread where Laurie Goulding admonished everyone posting death metal as 'feeling 40k' as childish. Musical preference is too easy to project onto a setting based on personal biases, so ultimately it's as pointless to discuss as which legion is best.

Eh, in Abnett's 40K they're all driving hovercars and messing around on dataslates and whatnot all the time. I can't imagine finding a music mixing 'app' would be out of the question.

 

I imagine on most worlds that music would be very restrained in the mainstream. The Imperium is, after all, a totalitarian religious regime. I think their music scene would more often resemble Europe before the reformation or even Iran after the revolution. Experimental or popular music would be a very 'underground' thing, and groups of people gathering to listen to music and drink and dance would probably all be executed for being heretics or chaos cultists. And honestly, a group of people gathering in an underground fashion to dance, drink and party to awesome 'illegal' music is probably the perfect breeding ground for heretics and chaos cultists.

Better than probably. Underground music scenes are how left wing terrorists recruit all the time in real life, so it's entirely understandable to think alternative music genres would fill a similar function in 40k. More so than even higher education, where you'd find another natural breeding ground for chaos infiltration like the Thousand Sons and Emperor's Children. It's very likely Abnett draws these parallels specifically, as he was very clear the spartan, religious lifestyles of human beings are specifically designed to keep chaos at bay in his short story about Ollanius.

[Evil Eye]

Speaking of music with a chaotic influence, whilst everyone always imagines Slaanesh as being all about dubstep or death metal, I can picture his/her/its followers creating truly esoteric music, possibly with a heavy focus on complex compositions and beautiful but utterly incomprehensible singing. Obviously the exact nature would vary tremendously from group to group, cult to cult and warband to warband, and there's nothing to say that bizarre electronic noise and heavy metal dirges aren't Slaaneshi (especially when you consider the IRL origins of the Noise Marines) but in some of the more "perfection" oriented Slaanesh-worshipping circles I think there's room for more.

 

Case in point, "Wretched Weaponry" from the NieR: Automata soundtrack (in fact just about any song from this game would do well but I do love this one so much). Mesemerizing, haunting melodies and singing which is simultaneously deeply moving yet utterly meaningless. For added meta, the made-up language the singer created for the game's soundtrack (including this song) is called "Chaotic"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQT_LwV2qwM

[Marshal Rohr]

Exactly. A castrato is more Slaaneshi than a punk with gauges.

[Slave to Darkness]

Exactly. A castrato is more Slaaneshi than a punk with gauges.

Agreed, and thats coming from a Slaanesh player who's a Black Metal guitarist/vocalist. 

 

I still need to finish my Noise Marine squad armed with Sonic Violins and Cellos, so far all I have done is a Champion with Doom Siren Panpipes :lol:

[Claws and Effect]

Somehow I envision something akin to some of Ministry's weirder stuff, My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult, and Combichrist.

 

Maybe some KMFDM.

 

I'm only personally familiar with Ministry. I'm a metalhead. But a buddy of mine is a huge industrial/industrial-metal fan.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Claws and Effect

[Slave to Darkness]

Somehow I envision something akin to some of Ministry's weirder stuff, My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult, and Combichrist.

 

Maybe some KMFDM.

 

I'm only personally familiar with Ministry. I'm a metalhead. But a buddy of mine is a huge industrial/industrial-metal fan.

 

Try this, I think its the dude from Ministry if memory serves correctly. Its the song played in Robo-Cop when he busts Nash. 

[NovemberIX]

Where are the 40k DJs going to get the necessary computer mixing equipment to make any form of electronic music? This reminds me of the thread where Laurie Goulding admonished everyone posting death metal as 'feeling 40k' as childish. Musical preference is too easy to project onto a setting based on personal biases, so ultimately it's as pointless to discuss as which legion is best.

 

DJ'ing used to be quite analogue actually, but if we're talking DJ in the Electronic Music Production sense, where wouldn't they find the equipment? Making modern EDM is really just playing around with a pretty GUI doing the waveform math for you and emitting a specific series of MHz tones, but back in the day you were manipulating equipment designed for other purposes to give you the sound you wanted.  Things like testing equipment, or other work like appliances where those tones were used in diagnostics or as forms of warning. This is abutting another topic but the technology base in 40K may be deeply regressed, but they are still a much more technologically advanced civilization than we comparatively are. That and humans have been making music with every level of technology some way some how for a very long time now. So what do I think Pound might sound like? Probably something like Grime,Dancehall, and Carioca-Funk, or a bit like Chiptune meets breakbeat, but since I'm feeling flippant, I'm gonna go with some where between the extremes of Sitar-Metal or Neo-Enka.

 

 

[Adeptus]

 

Where are the 40k DJs going to get the necessary computer mixing equipment to make any form of electronic music? This reminds me of the thread where Laurie Goulding admonished everyone posting death metal as 'feeling 40k' as childish. Musical preference is too easy to project onto a setting based on personal biases, so ultimately it's as pointless to discuss as which legion is best.

 

DJ'ing used to be quite analogue actually, but if we're talking DJ in the Electronic Music Production sense, where wouldn't they find the equipment? Making modern EDM is really just playing around with a pretty GUI doing the waveform math for you and emitting a specific series of MHz tones, but back in the day you were manipulating equipment designed for other purposes to give you the sound you wanted.  Things like testing equipment, or other work like appliances where those tones were used in diagnostics or as forms of warning. This is abutting another topic but the technology base in 40K may be deeply regressed, but they are still a much more technologically advanced civilization than we comparatively are. That and humans have been making music with every level of technology some way some how for a very long time now. So what do I think Pound might sound like? Probably something like Grime,Dancehall, and Carioca-Funk, or a bit like Chiptune meets breakbeat, but since I'm feeling flippant, I'm gonna go with some where between the extremes of Sitar-Metal or Neo-Enka.

 

 

Everything you just said, in the context of 40k, is like... super heretical.

[Dagoth Ur]

Quite honestly, I think some of the stuff from Nmesh's new album Pharma would fit quite well (Plunderphonics in general). Fall any Vegetable, Rangdang Slapjab, Vault Maintenance 700 CMC, Acid Baby and PBS Ancillary Rack Room (Especially this one!) stick out to me as something that I could imagine hearing in some seedy Necromunda Underhive bar.
 
https://youtu.be/PesQYsHE4xI

Edited September 18, 2017 by The Observer