Magic and Music: Orzhov (White-Black)

http://www.lala.com/#memberplaylist/47893P81253/ (Playlist complete)

The enemy pairings are a little bit more difficult to nail than the allied ones because of the color hole between them. For example, with the Orzhov you're hitting a lot of Azorius and Dimir artists, except that they can't have any of the blue bits in the song. That's not always easy to find, but fortunately the Orzhov are one of the easiest to patch together, because light and dark, hauntings, and sacred grounds (or Godless Shrines as the case may be) are common musical themes. Like the Selesnya, the Orzhov are easy to understand; it's just making their music cohere that proved to be difficult. Most of the music on here is reverently dark, as you'd expect, but the thing that makes most of it go together is that it's slooooow. Unless the song so exhibits light and darkness to the extent that the Orzhov will accept it on that basis, the songs need to be church-paced to feel reverential of the area it's covering.

Fortunately, just as the guild would have ethereal, God-sounding music, so it also would have more vocals than the average compilation; a church implies people. Several Dead Can Dance songs could show up on here, but Anywhere Out of the World defines the guild best. Porcupine Tree, a true Orzhov band, shows up prominently here too. (It's that white element that lets me like them, as opposed to several proggy metallic bands who have too much red.) I don't know how well the compilation holds together, but there are plenty of good songs on it.

Black Dog - Biomantric Life
Dead Can Dance - Anywhere Out of the World
Aphex Twin - Icct Hedral
Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke - Pilgrimage of Lost Children
Bassic - Tech Demon
Black Dog - Witches Ov
Porcupine Tree - 'Light Mass Prayers' --> Gravity Eyelids
Hybrid - Blackout
UltraMax - Beauty of My Inner World
VNV Nation - Rubicon
Hybrid - Finished Symphony