theres something pleasantly, pantheistic or nature worshippy ab this thread of places having attitudes towards us, landmarks and landscapes as entities (the environment is an agent, angel, aghast, aglow, agon &c).
the ambient/immersive music distinction is also on point, while reclaiming ambient music for "music about ambience" rather than "music setting a preconscious ambience".
itd be nice if "backrooms" stuff was more about this - interminable expanse of once lived in, now emptied prefab spaces. rather than "also a monster is chasing you", which really is quite infantile.
i see a picture of the backrooms and all i want to do is go back there.
some excellent prose reserved for vektroid! -
"if this feeling was somehow preserved and reached another world many years later, a message in a bottle. Despite the tongue in cheek connotations, the promise of the title is genuine: if you listen you’ll be trained in, initiated into the cult of the subterranean. "
i think this paragraph gets at the... emotionally tortured colors and "clandestine game of signifiers" facets of NDL Initiation Tape exceptionally well