10 albums that feel like watching ‘Dune: Part Two’: “Every child will be a leader”
It’s been just over a month since Dune: Part Two hit cinemas, but the hype around the film shows no signs of slowing down. Critics and cinema-goers have rightfully lauded Denis Villeneuve for his second entry into the sci-fi series, for his cinematic scope and star-studded ensemble cast, leaving many already pining for an adaptation of Dune Messiah.
If you’ve been taken in by the Duniverse, sitting with bated breath waiting for Villeneuve to confirm a third installment, perhaps you’re in need of new media to satiate that craving for deserts and drama. Maybe you’re desperately rereading Frank Herbert’s original texts to fill the void, maybe the staff at your local cinema are sick of the sight of you, or maybe you’ve even resorted to David Lynch’s poor attempt at adaptation to get your Dune fix.
Maybe you’re wandering around with Hans Zimmer’s score blaring through your headphones, trying to chase the high of hearing Austin Butler utter the words “May thy knife chip and shatter.” If so, we’ve collated the perfect list of albums to get you through the incoming Dune drought.
As long as you’re willing to conjure up expansive landscapes and burrowing sandworms in your mind rather than relying on Villeneuve’s visuals, they might just give you the same feeling as watching Dune: Part Two. From the ambient stylings of Aphex Twin to Grimes’ Dune-inspired debut, find our list of albums below.
10 albums that feel like watching ‘Dune: Part Two’
Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works Volume II
Aphex Twin’s 1994 record Selected Ambient Works Volume II does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a gorgeous collection of swirling atmospherics and ambience that sounds like the world of Dune in its quietest moments. It oscillates between calm and chilling with ease, as if soundtracking a stroll across the sand dunes and an unexpected encounter with a sandworm.
While compositions like ‘#22’ emulate the sci-fi elements of the series with anxiety-inducing synths that bend and bleep, works like ‘#3’ present a far calmer sonic world, but they’re no less expansive. Between subtle swirls and intense electronics, Selected Ambient Works Volume II seems to contain all the same scope and strangeness of Dune.
Sleep – Dopesmoker
Although stoner band Sleep’s 2018 record The Sciences references Dune directly in its penultimate track, ‘Giza Butler’, it’s Dopesmoker that encapsulates Herbert’s world best. With one track lasting over an hour, it emulates the massive runtime Villeneuve himself has awarded to his Dune world-building.
Doomy and dark, it’s a record that feels like the most dramatic and atmospheric moments of Dune. Arik Roper’s accompanying artwork for the 2021 re-release almost looks like a shot straight out of Villeneuve’s adaptation, picturing the “Weedians” wandering the desert beneath a crescent moon.
Nico – Desertshore
The name of Nico’s 1970 record isn’t the only element that makes Desertshore a worthy listen for Dune fans. The weighty organs and intense lyrics that make up the record contain a similar atmosphere and drama to the world of Dune, as Nico sings of destiny and dreams from the very first track.
“Every child will be a leader,” she sings as the album comes to a close. It almost feels like her words could be applied to the character arc we’ve seen Chalamet’s Paul Atreides take so far, from training with Duncan Idaho to declaring himself the Lisan al Gaib.
Grimes – Geidi Primes
Electronic and otherworldly, Grimes’ output is the sonic equivalent of sci-fi, so it’s unsurprising that her debut record, Geidi Primes, was directly inspired by Dune. Though it arrived over a decade before Villeneuve’s first adaptation of the series, Grimes was inspired by Herbert’s original text as well as Lynch’s highly-criticised take on the story.
The resulting album features references to planets and characters, including the brooding Feyd-Rautha, a character whom Butler recently took on. It lightens the feel of Dune a little with Grimes’ airy vocals and art-pop instrumentation, but it’s quite possibly the closest a record can get to Herbert’s world.
Steve Reich – The Desert Music
If Villeneuve had chosen to take his Dune adaptation in a slightly different direction, and if he hadn’t honed a relationship with legendary composer Hans Zimmer, The Desert Music could have provided the perfect accompaniment to translate the story to screen.
Strings and flutes create tension and texture in the arrangement, while voices, much like Zimmer’s soundtrack for the film, afford it a haunting humanity. Like the sci-fi series, it’s densely dramatic but sonically sparse—the perfect album for dramatising the monotony of the everyday.
Low – I Could Live In Hope
“Three inches above the floor,” Low vocalist Alan Sparhawk begins on I Could Live In Hope, “Man in a box wants to burn my soul.” It’s not a direct Dune reference like Grimes’ work, and it’s accompanied by slowcore strums and subdued percussion, but it contains all the same drama and tension as watching Paul place his hand into the box.
I Could Live In Hope takes things just as slow as Villeneuve does, allowing plucked strings to linger and elongating lyrics at will. It’s hazy and lazy, but drama bubbles beneath the surface, in the simplistic but weighty words that the pair of vocalists deliver.
Gustav Holst – The Planets
Like the futurism at the heart of sci-fi, Gustav Holst was way ahead of his time when he wrote The Planets in the early 1900s. Marrying the orchestral with the astrological, he created a collection of compositions that could have soundtracked Star Wars just as well as they soundtrack the Solar System.
The planets referred to in the title of Gustav Holst’s early 1900s collection of compositions are real – from ‘Mars, the Bringer of War’ to ‘Neptune, the Mystic’ – but they have all the same scope, mystery, and ethereality of the worlds in Dune. It’s a feat in composition that the work sounds just as magical now as a century ago.
Just Mustard – Heart Under
Shoegaze may not be the first genre that comes to mind when you picture Dune. Fuzzy guitars and mountains of feedback and distortion aren’t exactly akin to Zimmer’s choral compositions, but they do contain a certain atmosphere and scope that feels suited to the Duniverse.
In the modern shoegaze realm, no one has honed this atmosphere more masterfully than the Irish outfit Just Mustard. On Heart Under, they underscore dramatic lyrics like, “My eye a sin,” and, “Waiting for the sun in my hand,” with instrumentation that sits somewhere between sparsely industrial and densely dark. It’s suitably sci-fi-adjacent.
William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops
Once more, mirroring the scope of Villeneuve and Herbert’s projects, William Basinski’s The Disintegration Records spans four albums and almost 300 minutes. It’s the kind of collection that prompts contemplation and reflection, whether you’re ready for it or not, with its elongated ambience and gradual decaying.
If you let it, this ever-looping and disintegrating ambience might just lead you into the world of Dune. It’s certainly not as overtly dramatic as some of the other entries on the list, nor is it as directly related to Herbert’s world of sandworms and spectacle, but it hones a similar atmosphere to Villeneuve’s efforts.
Robert Fripp and Brian Eno – The Equatorial Stars
With how much we’ve considered swirling atmospheres, it would be impossible not to include the father of ambient music himself, Brian Eno, on the list. In the early 2000s, he linked up with King Crimson’s Robert Fripp to create The Equatorial Stars, another demonstration of his unparalleled prowess in the genre.
Aside from the spacey title of the record, The Equatorial Stars is yet another contemplative and celestial record that mirrors the sparsity and scope of Dune. Like the experience of watching Chalamet traverse the dunes for almost three hours, it’s lulling and leaves you in a state of awe.
