Ethereal Gothic as a sub-genre is really a hyper-inflation of the traditional “gothic rock” sound, as it were, into an actual literal interpretation of what the word “gothic” means to the man on the street. Many a complaint have I heard from the “non-initiate”, upon hearing a bit of Christian Death or Sisters, retorting something like, “What’s so ‘gothic’ about it?”. I could imagine popping in the first Dead Can Dance album and eliciting a similar reaction; yet were I to play the third album, I think then “the man on the street” might finally ascent to having found the “gothic” sound.

The point I am making is that off of the ethereal gothic genre are stripped any of the traditional artistic elements and stylizations of the gothic rock genre. Gone are the kitchy raspings of Bauhaus, the driving rock beats of The Sisters of Mercy, or the punky, lo-fi experiments of Christian Death. Gone is the self-mockery of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”, the careful tension between rhythm and emotion of “Logic”, or the exuberance of “Romeo’s Distress”. What is left is only the dark sonics that the “man on the street” calls “gothic”.

What, then, is this genre, bereft of all its former trappings, to sound like? Focused as it is now with the “serious” tonalities that are demanded of it, it must explore musical worlds that were inappropriate for its mother genre: this means Gregorian Chant, world music, ambient textures, and neo-classical configurations. Indeed, Lisa Gerrard, after Spleen and Ideal, would begin her course down this road, first with studies in Baroque harmonies and later with Eastern melodic inflections. What we have is something completely new – something tied to the original gothic only incidentally. now that “rock is dead”, peace, tranquility, and sadness must come alive; and the word “gothic”, despite infidelity to the original, must be taken literally.

In no way do I claim to be an authority on ethereal. I am only a dj who plays the stuff every week. But this is my take on it; this is what I see present in the music, and this is how I solve the puzzling question of how this music originated. Therefore, let all who read this know that I do not consider my evaluations of the genre here to be canonical. The five works that I have chosen to explore are only what I think is representative of the genre.

Here we find post-industrial textures and sampled dialogue. What does this have to do with ethereal? one might ask. Well, considering the “soundtracky” aspect of this disc and the ambience of its sound, placing it here under the denomination of ethereal seems justified. raison d’etre are a good example of that necessity in “heavenly” music to search for calm, away from motion, away from change. Songs like “Inner Depths of Sadness” seem to make time and space merge into a static continuum. Away from the earth, this music seems to take us; and then the plaintive samples of Gregorian Chant in “Euphrosyne”, muffled and made robotic through technology stand out of the setting of this motionless world to remind us that here we shall not find the setlling romance of earthly comradery: only indifference and stillness.

From the first plucked chords of “Ilusory Me” to the final cadence of “And the Wood Comes into Leaf” we are engulfed by a peace and sweetness that is, ironically enough, familiar. Out of all the chosen representatives of this genre, Love Spirals Downwards is the most acceptable to general audiences. Dare we call it “pop ethereal”? In Idylls the mood explored is still reminiscent of the dark and the mournful that are so definitive of the genre but the moods are contextualized within song formats (ie-verse/chorus), drums often enter for rhythmical impetus, and Suzanne Perry sings playfully, like a child on a swing. This is ethereal that reflects our world more than the rest. Not rejecting the forms and conventions that pop music has engendered, this is ethereal that seeks to explore our world instead of attempting to escape it. Ryan Lum’s lush sonics and simple chord changes keep us tuned in viscerally, without aweing us into submission. This is ethereal for the heart and the pulse, and by implication for our lives.

One might say, “there’s an orchestra in this album” and conclude that it has no relation to ethereal qua genre; and they would be absolutely correct. But after one listening of this beautiful work they may be less enthused at having discovered a heretic. Yes, the composer is from Poland and Yes, he was born in 1933, so Yes, he is no descendant of Bauhaus; but that isn’t the point here. Gorecki is ethereal by accident. In his search for the sound that could convey the feeling he was focused on, he stumbled onto the minimalist techniques of the latter twentieth-century, eschewed his dry serialist, and “modern” stylistic entanglements, and enriched the minimalist technique with the sound of lush and dense bodies of strings, incessant lingerings on groups of triads, and concentrated efforts to harken back to a time when religious awe “was the thing”. Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3 is a perfect example of how the ethereal genre, left with a whole musical universe hitherto unexplored, begins to mimic, almost identically the sound and forms of other genres. In this symphony we find proof that it is classical music which is most capable of conveying those moods. This is an absolute must-have for anyone searching for “that beautiful and sorrowful (through and through) record”.

In exploring the delicate interchange between religious motives and the paganistic world of gnostic Christianity, Marc Ellis has created an aesthetic not only unique but seminal as well to the ethereal sound. As aggressive as ethereal can be, songs like “Sanctus” and “Es La Perdicion” challenge us to accept the growl in their chant. Perhaps here is represented that human struggle between the mortal and the divine within him. Ellis’ project centers around the aesthetic of repetition and condensation of harmony similar to that which Brendan Perry explored in some of the outros of his work. The listener is demanded to submit to the relentless agrandizement of the musical substance unfurling before him, and in doing so he finds the celebration of that dualism in “etherealism” – the human struggle between himself and his immortal vision.

If there can be such a thing as the number one ethereal album of all time, it will be this one. This is absolutely a work of inspired genius: the sublimity of some its moments is like that of the actual realization of divine grace, its tasteful simplicity leaves us completely in the work without requiring us to struggle for it. Its ambient moments mesmerize us, its tonal explorations, so reminiscent of the Baroque aesthetic, intoxicate us, and its raw passion, yet unhampered by this work’s sophistication, connects with us viscerally and absolutely.

Here is the synthesis of all that was, is, and ever will be ethereal.

In these five works we find the different faces of ethereal represented, faces that basically grew out of the vacuum of “traditional gothic”:

Raison D’etre, the ambient,
in Love Spirals Downwards, the pop/rock,
in Henryk Gorecki, the classical,
in Elijah’s Mantle, the neo-classical,
Dead Can Dance, the fusion of all of the above.