Abandoned Places, Erdstall, Mystic Towers, etc

[thekeeper]

What does everyone think of Mystic Towers?

Haven't listened to it in a while and just finished Inner Kingdom, and now onto Caverns of Crystal. There's something about Inner Kingdom that seems very personal and even sad at times. I'm not sure if I'd classify at a 'sad album', but its evocative of inner hidden emotions, so the title is fitting. The demanding nature and length of it begs a more contemplative listen. Even if you play it as 'background music' it's still affective. I'm not sure what feelings to pinpoint, but I do get a strong abstracted sense of nostalgia that isn't situational or necessarily linked to memory, moreso a deep nostalgic essence that is simply understood. The ether of hiraeth. Strong stuff.

Caverns of Crystal is massive. Less mysterious than the first album, but more demanding. It's almost tragic. There's something about the melodies and everything happening at all once and acting on their own but fitting with each other that's seems defeated and posthumous yet, I don't know, glistening. The title track is like a wall, at times a funerary symphony but at others an innocent and wondrous trail of thought. There's a lot happening simultaneously in these albums, contrasting feelings and truly mystic evocations.

[nahadoth]

My initial impression of them was that the title track on Caverns of Crystal was god-tier dungeon trance and the rest was less polished - I played CoC as background music while reading, and had to put the book down at around the 5 minute mark as the sound was so enveloping, really demanded my focus.

Over many repeated listens since then, I've found both albums to grow on me quite a bit. Part of me suspects that a loop pedal was involved in the second album, since there's a density to that title track that gives a strong sense of building up, and makes the labyrinthine melodies easier to get lost in.

Ultimately I really love this project, as similar to Erdstall I find it to be very magickal - not in the realm of high-fantasy sorcery, but in a more ambiguous way, where the study of magick holds the potential for great power but also total dissolution of ego and loss of self. I find the focus of Mystic Towers to be a bit less bleak than Erdstall but I perceive the two projects as being sides of a coin, among all of this artist's projects.

[nahadoth]

Anybody listen to Zweilicht recently? It really feels like an outlier among these projects. I don't know if I like it as much, but it is fascinating in the use of that incredibly quiet recorder sound, and that it seems to be played live. The focus and minimalism can really catch me if I'm in the right mood.

[Tyrannus]

Mar 4, 2018 19:48:17 GMT -5 nahadoth said:

Anybody listen to Zweilicht recently? It really feels like an outlier among these projects. I don't know if I like it as much, but it is fascinating in the use of that incredibly quiet recorder sound, and that it seems to be played live. The focus and minimalism can really catch me if I'm in the right mood.

This and siliniez are definitely projects I need to revisit

[Tyrannus]

Also it’s been over a year since anything new right?
D:

[nahadoth]

Mar 4, 2018 21:03:48 GMT -5 Tyrannus said:

Also it’s been over a year since anything new right?
D:

 Yes, although I cling to the believe that this is the same person behind Voormithadreth and Turonian. 

[balbulus]

Fucking hell. I've just looked at the Abandoned Places bandcamp page for the first time in ages, and on the page for the final release (The Funereal Call) there is the line "All music by Adam Kalmbach". I'm sure that wasn't there before.

Mystery solved, identity confirmed.

EDIT: And it's there on Voormithadreth too!

[crystallogic13]

Thanx for the information balbulus!! Seems Encyclopedia Metallum also has been updated with all his projects, but unfortunately due to EM's policies DS's acts are not allowed besides specific metal related stuff.. And I've been reading in FB pages that some people were preparing a similar wiki site for Dungeon Synth.. If anyone fishes that link/info more in case we miss it, please inform! Thanx!

[balbulus]

Yes, it was me that updated his EM page!

[balbulus]

Following on from Nahadoth's list on the previous page, I've taken this newfound knowledge and created a spreadsheet of all of Adam Kalmbach's known releases. I've included Ophir and Failure Ritual, which I'm 100% convinced are him despite no official confirmation, as well as Turonian which I'm reasonably sure is him. There are a few other projects on the Jeshimoth website (Pumpkin Buzzard, Hellbeast and Testikill) which he may or may not have some involvement with, but I'll leave them for now.

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Bf5KunUMDhZakFxvxstPhJgZoA6Y90AZr4x3zyXlnYs/

[ruinen]

Sorry to be digging up this old thread, but Adam talks about his DS projects in this recent interview: www.invisibleoranges.com/jute-gyte-interview/

You were rumored to and ultimately discovered to have created a large number of dungeon synth/drone/ambient projects like Abandoned Places and Erdstall. What led you to this genre specifically and do you still make dungeon synth?

The period following the codification of dungeon synth as a genre was fascinating, partly because the canonical "first wave" works were so few and so varied. There was a sense that the genre was wide open for exploration that I found exciting, and I created several anonymous projects to experiment with the possibilities of the style. The last dungeon synth music I released was Voormithadreth’s The Quest of Iranon from 2017. I felt, and still feel, that that album is likely the best work I’m capable of in the genre, so I chose to step away. It’s rare for me to revisit music once I’ve released it, but I return to that album a few times a year. I also felt that it might be worth merging that branch of my work back to the trunk and incorporating what I’d learned from dungeon synth into my work as Jute Gyte.

I suppose I should address the anonymity of these projects. In addition to the suitability of anonymity to the genre’s aesthetics, these projects were released at a time when my work as Jute Gyte was starting to get more attention after a decade where I had few listeners, and I think I found it a relief to be able to simply release music anonymously and without context.

When you were active as a dungeon synth artist and under so many monikers, how did you find yourself dividing up ideas while maintaining a sense of identity for each project?

Each project was an experiment with a different sound palette–like a project using only Mellotron samples–and/or compositional process–like gradually increasing the droniness and dissonance of a project’s releases. The first and last dungeon synth projects I did, Abandoned Places and Voormithadreth, both used FM synthesis, which has a gritty, uncanny quality that I think works well for dungeon synth but which hadn’t been used by any of the early dungeon synth artists. For Abandoned Places everything was sequenced in Finale (a music notation software), but for Voormithadreth I wrote the tracks on a piano, then performed them on a hardware FM synth running through a blown-out practice amp. A lot of the Abandoned Places tracks are chromatic inversions and/or retrogrades of each other, meaning that one track’s notes are mirrored vertically (high notes become low, etc.) and/or horizontally (melodies and chord progressions are reversed) in another track. Similarly, the Voormithadreth tracks sometimes use Vince Persichetti’s mirrored hands technique, where each hand is playing the inversion of the other hand’s musical material.

[crystallogic13]

Nice ruinen, very interesting interview and so much respect for Jute Gyte... While his BM stuff is for a very advanced audience, I appreciated back in the day when I listened to Ship of Theseus the first I listened.. I couldn't understand it but certainly appreciated its value.. But his DS stuff really are some of my most beloved ever, I was really excited when I read the connection on this forum that it was Jute Gyte behind Abandoned Places, Voormithadreth etc , and after I read the above interview I totally wish if he ever reconsiders and release some more DS.. Quest of Iranon along with Depressive Silence's II/Mourning are on the top of my GOAT list, it sounds EXACTLY as it should to conjure my memories of me back in the 90s reading all H.P. Lovecraft's bibliography... Legendary..

[balbulus]

That's awesome. It's great to finally see him talking about those projects, and the reasons for the anonymity. I'd like to hear what to has to say about Loremaster, as that's still my favourite.

Plus, I'd still like definite confirmation of his involvement in Ophir and Failure Ritual.

[matt]

Voormithadreth's The Quest of Iranon is available on cassette from Ancient Meadow Records as of five hours ago. Edition of 200. From the interview with Adam linked three replies up: "The last dungeon synth music I released was Voormithadreth’s The Quest of Iranon from 2017. I felt, and still feel, that that album is likely the best work I’m capable of in the genre, so I chose to step away. It’s rare for me to revisit music once I’ve released it, but I return to that album a few times a year."