Here's a story that's related to this very piece. For almost 7 years I've been a big fan of dark ambient. My first forays into the genre were always unclear to me, and it always felt as if that knowledge was hidden just beyond reach, in a very taunting fashion. I knew this much: it was videogame music combined with something else. First it was Newgrounds music, but there was never much dark ambient here, so I moved on to more specific sources when I stopped coming here in 2010/2011.
For years, I'd listen to dark ambient songs and certain fragments would subconsciously register. A strange feeling, I can only describe it as the feeling of being in a room where some very specific things are incredibly familiar, but you cannot point out why, nor can you point out the exact things. Very strange and sometimes disconcerting.
For the past few days, I have been playing Dark Echo. The sounds of water drops splashing, the claustrophobic feeling, the darkness were all immediate catalysts. The fragments would appear spontaneously and very often, even without listening to dark ambient. I'd... hear these sounds in my head while washing the dishes or petting my dogs, cleaning my Airsoft gear or working on my laptop. Predominantly, the drone and that high pitched buzzing sound.
Today, I had the urge to go on Newgrounds, and more so, I intensely felt the need to recover my old account. This was a determination, an urgency that had no definite basis. It was like a buried marker, a sleeper code, a preprogrammed impulse.
I couldn't recover it yet. The sounds kept ringing in my head. I once more felt an impulse to look at my old account. About 45 minutes ago I began listening to my favorited songs.
Then my eyes stumbled on the title. I initially skimmed past, until I noticed a sharp and complete silence in my mind that forced me to do a double take. What came next were entire waves of chills, rolling through my back rapidly, again, again, again. No more sounds in the back of my head. Only silence.
This was it. The piece which introduced me to dark ambient. My first foray, my first taste of the genre, that memory that was lying just outside my mind's grasp for years. The source of all those familiar yet strange moments.
And it does not feel like a string of coincidences. This feels too structured and guided to be sheet luck. Something took years to taunt me, then guide me here.