"The noise at the end of the world in your ears"
344490
Great album.  Thank you, Sting!  While these songs are new, I also hear echoes of past works, which is something I really enjoy as a long time fan.
1320417
Others have applauded the superior sound quality, and I will second that without repeating the details.  However, there is too little emphasis on the side effects of this technology: the noise induction when under isolation.

Basically, the cables connected to the earpieces rub up against your shirt, ID badge, iPod, whatever. . . and you hear every single impulse and beat of that damn cable moving around.  It's akin to hearing a motor boat miles away when underwater or holding your ear against a wall to eavesdrop on your neighbor.  I find myself having to hold myself completely still to enjoy my music when I wear these.

So, if you are mostly docile and sedentary when listening, you'll be able to enjoy these.  If you're moving about the slightest, such as walking down the street in NYC, forget it.  If you're looking for something to take on your jog, keep on looking.  The cable noise will drive you crazy.
1942055
there is a part in the audio where there is an explosion and then someone screams and then the robot laughs
4222721
A glimpse into our post-apocolyptic future, from hell.  As well done as anything by Kammarheit, Atrium Carceri or Yen Pox in conveying the hopelessness, the sense of overwhelming fatigue, even the sounds of work being done--for the machines, as programmed by the One Percenters (The Illuminati)--in this brilliantly executed foretelling of humanity's future.  A great example of drone/industrial/post-apocolyptic ambient music.  The genre, I believe, makes us THINK more than any other, about what we are listening to and how it could be us, in the very near future, toiling in the factories and the underground caves, without respite, without succor, without hope.  Give it a listen!
1962248
Tired of pest buzzing your ear? Zaaaaap no more bug
Aha aw the sound of bugs dying (  he he)
2276225
The 'gong' noise is almost inaudible, I cranked both my media player and my computer to figure out where it was. The sound is so faint, that I had originally thought that my mic was on on my computer because essentially the 'gong' is just a small echoing sound that is so faint, I had to time the mp3s just so that I knew they were at an interval so that I would not that they were from the mp3 not my speaker system. I'd hate to put this on my ipod and have to crank up the volume, how relaxing would ocean be if it was the level of a typhoon in my ears? Don't buy this.
3814451
I just picked this up and it destroys most other albums of the industrial noise genre.  Especially for 1981, there was nothing else like it that I know of.  Unlike most other albums that are industrial or noise in nature, this album has diversity.  It's not just the same crap over and over again.  It starts with the synth pop of All Night War Film and travels through the murky waters of melodic synth noise for the rest of the album, often sounding like if Kraftwerk scored a Jodorowsky film funded by Einstrzende Neubauten.  Devo absurdness creeps in here and there.  There are strange samples and natural recordings.  The track Tarpon Pond is like nothing else I've ever heard, sounding like some unknown monster growling from the depths of an analog synthesizer.  There's nothing else to say except that if you like industrial, noise, synth pop, or electronic music, you will find all of that here and often all together at the same time.
2759596
Nightmarish "ambient" sound made using godknowswhat as source material. At times it sounds like the best and most abstract free jazz (Schlippenbach, Brotzmann), at others like some of Xenakis' electronic experiments, at others like Naked City's _Absinthe_, and at most other times like a massive blackened blizzard slowly lurching toward you, tediously burying you with deranged black snowflakes, suffocating you in utter and frigid darkness. So f---ing essential.
2609695
Gets the job done... WITH A HORRIBLE DEATH NOISE!
42866
This is an amazingly beautiful arrangement of sound. While listening, I conjure up visions of childhood and a longing for bliss. For me, this type of music was made for headphones; it's very personal. Highly recommended for fans of Explosions In The Sky, Mogwai, Sigur Ros and This Will Destroy You (among other instrumental greats).
3060465
all ambient sounds are amplified, nothing like the sound of your own breathing screamed in your ear, on the plus side, it lets you hear demons from time to time
3941856
Many years ago my friend had an LP titled "Halloween" that was a compilation of spooky sounds suitable for being played in spook houses or in your own home for trick or treaters. It had a variety of uninspired moans, groans, and various sounds of chains clanking and doors creaking. But hands down the most ridiculously unscary sound was called "The Ghost From Outer Space." The track consisted of a spring being sprung and then slowed down in that cartoony way you have heard on various Bugs Bunny shorts. Then there is this sound that resembles a pogo stick going from left to right across the sound stage. How this was supposed to represent space and ghosts completely escaped our comprehension.
4601056
There is a reason for the danger warning.  The first time I went to listen to it, I tried to read.  I couldn't.  Too relaxed!  It's quite amazing.
1980592
Think these are the end times?  Think we are in a dark age & headed for definite annihilation?

It's not surprising, since the media hypes up our paranoia by bombarding us with the bad, the horrific, & the shocking.  Bad news sells and titillates - good news is considered boring & effete.  It's hip to be cynical & dry; uncool to be overjoyed & affirmative.

Rob Brezsny is here to tell you that being "uncool" is the way to go, because - in reality - the world isn't as bad off or as bad as the media has led us to believe.  The paranoia we are infused with can be turned around into what Brezsny aptly terms "pronoia" - instead of being sure the world is out to destroy you, know that it, in reality, is here to (and is) showering you with blessings!

An uplifting, invigorating read - Brezsny takes you on a spirited & spiritual romp, gently prodding you to shove off the cynicism & doom & learn to live, love, & prosper in the real world - the one full of blessings and Light.
4883651
In my old age, I have mellowed out considerably. Only a few years ago, I would've scoffed at whoever had told me that I would now be inundating my earholes with ambient electropop & quirky orchestral indierock. Now I scoff at that snarky little snot sneering at people who 'lose their edge'. I have since learned that 'edgy' is not some loutish dolt howling obscenities along to some brutish yob performing the d-beat by whapping audience members' skulls with a 2-by-4 while some gawky rat-faced pointyhead leering over a guitar tries in pitiful vain to figure out how to make proper noises on the confounded contraption. No, I realized that poignancy lies in the prowess with which one conveys themself, not how ruthlessly you bludgeon your audience over the head with it. Once that epiphany occurred to me, I found I had little patience for most punkish, mawkish hoopla.
So for me to remain able to listen to this record for its entire duration, much less without cringing at even the most pathetic missteps, is singular indeed. Upon first glance, your earballs will find nothing subtle about this record at all. Until you realize what you're listening to. This record is raw like a freshly mutilated corpse found drifting down a gentle creek of suppurating sewage. The guitars screech like rabid ravens divebombing, the bass growls like a lurching bear, the drums stampede like a hoard of demon locomotives seeking to trample you. And atop all the din, the vocalist shrieks in urgent inhuman agony. It is simply some of the most effectively terrifying music ever recorded. And considering the vast scores of bands aspiring for this effect, that's exemplary. This is no mere hardcore punk band spewing their bile with all the agility & cunning of a steamroller plowing through a brick wall like the oaf it is. No, this is very deliberate, very dexterous. I dare you to really listen to this album and refrain from allowing chills to wrack your spine. And once you are mottled & petrified, realize that this is a CHRISTIAN band.
Not before or since have I encountered a record with the same potency of Where the Meager Die of Self Interest. It's astonishing. It may be one of a kind. Not that I'm really expending much effort looking. This album is enough. To me, this is the definitive statement of punkish angst. No, not even angst, really. This is something much more unsettling, much more arcane. It gives me the willies. And I love it. So many years after first coming across it, it still retains every ounce of its appeal.
I urge anyone reading: procure a copy before they disappear into oblivion. Tooth & Nail probably doesn't even remember they released this. It's safe to say it's ridiculously out of print. Because it's so out of style, out of touch with what's happening in music these days. But whatever. This still beats most of what's happening music these days.
So if you're disenfranchised with the myriads of bands never daring to address the more arcane aspects of life, this record will be a breath of fresh air. It may have been buried all these years, but it's not stale. It will always remain horrifying.
3782551
This goes beyond ambient. It's essentially white noise. Quite  shocking that it comes from the drummer of Napalm Death and guitarist of  OLD, two of the most brutal, severe, shrapnel flingingest bands ever to  walk the earth. However, I suppose this is what you would expect ambient  music to sound like from these guys. It's ambient, but it's HEAVY. It's  oppressive. It's the sound a 10 mile high black monolith would make as it  floats ominously above your home town. It can be a very visceral experience  to turn out the lights and crank this up as you lay on your back in the  middle of the room and feel it vibrating through the floor. If you're  looking for something unique, here you are.
2894661
I was at Subway having a sandwich for lunch today and heard something scary on the radio. Yes, Kenny G has licensed the classic 1969 Louis Armstrong recording of "What a Wonderful World" and added his syrupy meaningless soprano meanderings to it, thereby creating a "new" track that we will forever be hearing, wherein we get to hear him drizzle the immortal Satchmo with his unique strain of aural garbage.

I believe this event represents the end of western civilization as we know it. I will now grab my orange robe and move to a Tibetan mountaintop where I will contemplate all that is wrong with America.