What does PS1 Doom's music bring to mind?

Like so many here, I'm a huge fan of the Aubrey Hodges compositions for the PS1 editions of Doom. When isolated, my imagination becomes much more vivid, and really runs away with its many brooding soundscapes. This has recently been amplified by a revelation by Hodges, who in an interview stated the in-game soundtrack is intended to be diegetic; in others words, the music is what is actually happening inside the game's world, rather than existing as a background track. He envisioned demons speaking to each other through some sort of otherworldly means, and what the player hears is a sort of dimensional cross-section of the communications. Along with the nightmarish spaces I would go into hearing the music as a kid, I've noticed some interesting environments my mind generates as the tracks play. The names are taken from the 20th anniversary extended edition of the soundtrack which makes these visions even more vivid.

"The Broken Ones (Plant)"  is this kind of rusty, abandoned industrial facility in rapid decay. There's something sickening in the air, maybe radiation. Parasitic monsters lurk somewhere in the walls, or outside. A nauseating, bleachy, chemical palette blankets everything.

"Hell's Churn (Command Control)" has some really severe aliasing in one of its samples, and it very easily takes me to a dim machine space. Labyrinthine, dank corridors and and rusted technology. Evil smiles lurking in the shadows.

"Digitized Pain (Phobos Lab)" was reused for PS1 Final Doom's "Human BBQ," which is where I first heard it. That map always scared me a bit more than most of the others because there's such a dissonant drone. Some of the samples are expressed waves of terror that soar over one like a massive anvil or a winged beast. Stuck in a stone-and-wood prison, a vague sunless sky full of death looming overhead.

"Mind Massacre (Computer Station)" This is the infamous "bee buzzing in a soda can" track, and indeed, it does generate for me this wobbly, shaking pattern. Almost like seeing the vibrations of the demons whispering their plans to one another. The abstract of the soundwaves. It has a drone underneath I really like, that situates these "bee whispers" in cold, wet machinery.

"Breath Of Horror (Level - Deimos Anomaly)" is one of two tracks that stand out in particular, as they're a bit more difficult to listen to. This is probably due to how unnerving they are. With this one, the strange vocal-like sample, which also reminds me of a didgeridoo, feels almost like demons using some kind of ancient technology to speak through. Not phones, but something almost musical or organic. Upper echelon demons barking orders. This place is very cold and dark, and cavernous. It seems to expand forever while feeling completely closed in.

"A Calm Panic Rises (Containment Area)" is the second of those two tracks. I've had perhaps the most vivid response to this one, as the samples always felt to me like liquid, or gurgling. I would begin to envision bits of humans being used for occult alchemy. Their innards are slowly pushed through a maddening world of pipes, sills, boilers, tubes and containers. The demons sit nested in these great expanses of interlocking parts, using their dark magic to finish the distillation process. There is vast, unending darkness all around, with unseen lights providing dim impressions of the unearthly glass.

That's a pretty decent sampling of some of what I've experienced. Have you ever fallen into strange spaces listening to the music?

It's weird, I actually find comfort in some of the tracks.

"Demon Drone" sounds cold yet inviting, like a cave in a tundra It's hostile and boreal yet offers some form of betterment than the blizzard outside. It's oddly calming to me, used to use it to fall asleep.

"A Calm Panic Rises" is quintessential dark and damp music, sewers, grottos and aqueducts come to mind when listening. It evokes a feeling of some unknown eldritch intelligence slinking around just out of sight in the murk, would definitely suit a buried temple under the sea.

"Twisted Beyon Reason" sounds so sinister yet also filled with mirth, it's a bizarre feeling. It gives me visions of an old decrepit castle, the once grand hall is now haunted by deformed and horrific spectres forever having their last banquet.

"Hopeless Despair" is exactly what the title suggests. It evokes thoughts of an endless set of warped corridors and stairs, impossible to navigate and hopeless to comprehend, you'll never escape.

I could really just talk shit forever about the PSX/64 tracks but I only have so much time in the day. I used to think of it as just noise but over time I appreciate it deeper, hell I've even noticed how it is melodic, especially Final Doom.

I actually find myself listening to doom psx & 64's soundtracks while making maps or other things since the atmospheric style helps me concentrate better than most music I like. Because of that I don't really imagine a lot of stuff while listening to it.

I find that imagining specific things kills ambient music for me. I can "see" the music in the sense that I imagine visualizations, but they are too dreamlike and surreal to make sense of, which is the point of ambient music to me. It's not supposed to be "solid" enough to describe a specific thing.

When I'm running the Rogue Trader tabletop RPG, I'm using Aubrey Hodges PSDoom, Final PSDoom and Doom64 soundtracks whenever the characters explore abandoned high-tech ruins, ghost ships and other dirty ultra-tech mazes (and I'm using Torchlight & Torchlight 2 soundtracks when exploring lush, exotic planets).

I absolutely adore Aubrey Hodges dark ambient tracks featured in PSX Doom/Final/64/Quake and Quake II (64). What comes to my mind when I hear his work?
 

In my mind my frenzied eyes gaze upon the strange and feverish ideas of H.P Lovecraft. Humanity is like a little bubble that we surround ourselves in. We’re surrounded by light, noise, and other people in an attempt to keep out the things that exist on the fringes that form the wider universe.
 

And maybe one day the barrier between the real and unreal will be down and demons from beyond the stars will be looking in on us. Perhaps to join us by our fires of turf.

Its amazing how much the music can change the feel of the game. PSX soundtrack is terrifying in the best possible way, especially if you're strung out, sleep deprived and playing the game in the early hours. It starts playing tricks on your mind.

It brings me PEACE. 

On 7/5/2022 at 10:26 PM, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I find that imagining specific things kills ambient music for me. I can "see" the music in the sense that I imagine visualizations, but they are too dreamlike and surreal to make sense of, which is the point of ambient music to me. It's not supposed to be "solid" enough to describe a specific thing.

I agree with this, but I should specify that what I see as my imagination runs away with the song is not particularly distinct, either. I'm not seeing crystal clear, HD environments and characters. You described them as "too dreamlike and surreal to make sense of," which I think is very fitting, despite me offering some fairly elaborate descriptions.

I feel like if I were to illustrate these images as closely as I experience them, they would be very abstract and vague for the most part. Still, these stories build within the songs as they evolve. At the moment I'm listening to "Shadow Howls," a bonus track from the 25th anniversary edition of the PS1 Final Doom soundtrack. I keep seeing the Final Doom ammo box, as a furnace like it is in the title screen, in some foggy demonic void. There's all these gases and flames inside intricate heating systems, while these phallic, wormy things, things like human eels, wail deep in the walls of endless labyrinths. 

To me it brings to mind being in a nightmare, becoming lucid and being unable to escape the nightmare no matter how hard you scream and try force yourself awake