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Post by thekeeper on May 19, 2017 10:06:48 GMT -5
Winter Synth
Winter Synth is arguably the least talked about sub-genre within DS and definitely the most aesthetically specific. There's been somewhat of a lack of WS releases as of late, not sure if this is due to it being overshadowed by DS as a genre tag or if people just aren't really interesting in having winter-specific imagery anymore. The genre is defined as such on the Winter Synth Blog:
"Winter Synth" tends to have a more open expansive feel, with the hypnotic quality of an open landscape. By its nature it is slightly more minimalistic than Dungeon Synth, and as such there is theoretically a greater overlap into the realms of dark ambient and drone. The most common themes are snow, ice, forests and mountains.
and
Winter Synth is music that is inspired by, and reflects the elemental forces of nature. Having fought your way out from the oppressive confines of the dungeon, you are free to wander the open landscape, and meditate upon its wild beauty. From the ice-blasted wildernesses, through the ancient forests, to the epic grandeur of the mist-wreathed mountains.
The second definition would suggest that WS may not be exactly specific to winter, but rather nature itself. 'Forest Ambient' also exists as a somewhat loose genre within DS to describe forest/nature-centric albums but typically is not used to describe these kinds of winter-centric albums. However, allowing the definition of WS to extend into these other natural realms may spark some more interest in the genre if people are put off by a mono-theme and assumed lack of musical variety. What are some of everyone's favorite WS albums? Do you like WS, why or why not? Is the specificity of the genre stifling or too limited, or do you like the aesthetic boundaries? How would you yourself define WS? |
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Post by thekeeper on May 19, 2017 10:08:54 GMT -5
Almost undeniably the most popular and prominent album in the genre, the absolute embodiment of WS:
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Post by Ananoriel on May 19, 2017 10:30:44 GMT -5
Die Festung is my favourite winter synth album of all time.
And I find it hard to find other good projects with a similar sound, so I will keep my eye on this thread.
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Post by thekeeper on May 19, 2017 10:34:22 GMT -5
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Post by setfiretostrawmen on May 19, 2017 10:36:53 GMT -5
There should be a thread to keep track of these sub genres where we can debate about what falls into what
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Post by thekeeper on May 19, 2017 10:48:46 GMT -5
There should be a thread to keep track of these sub genres where we can debate about what falls into what The only sub-genres of DS whose named are actually used are Winter Synth, Forest Ambient, and Dungeon Noise. Forest Ambient is the looser of the three and can be applied somewhat broadly for things that fall into naturalist or even druidic territory, but I'd say stuff like Cernunnos Woods, Siliniez, and Taru nu Fuin fall into the FA concept if those give you a sense of what it is. You could say there a lot of other sub-genres (barbarian, progressive, etc) but (typically) no one really uses the actual names of these in a serious or defining way for their own or other's music, and they probably have the smallest quantities of artists attributed to them compared to WS, FA, and DN. |
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Post by balbulus on May 19, 2017 11:45:05 GMT -5
The second definition would suggest that WS may not be exactly specific to winter, but rather nature itself. This is true. When I invented the term "Winter Synth" (and the blog), I initially wanted to call it "Nature Synth", but was concerned that the abbreviation NS would have negative connotations. However, I wish I had stuck to my initial thought, as Winter Synth does kind of restrict the theme to, well, winter. But then, not all Dungeon Synth is about dungeons... |
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Post by balbulus on May 19, 2017 11:52:23 GMT -5
Another great and obscure WS album that is very similar to "Die Festung" is "Lands of Ice and Snow" by Winternacht. I downloaded it years ago, and it doesn't seem to be widely available online. I ordered a CD copy from Dungeons Deep records some years ago, but it never arrived despite repeatedly messaging them. There are a couple of tracks to stream on their website.
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Post by ranseur on May 19, 2017 11:58:33 GMT -5
I'm kind if okay with just lumping most of the nature type stuff into winter synth. It's good enough for me, dungeon synth could be broader as a term too but fantasy synth sounds dumb.
I'm kind of surprised by the lack of releases for this kind of stuff though, especially because it does go back to the 90s black metal scene with ildjarn so I think it has the same relevance as dungeon synth.
But I also think the more fully winter themed records have some parallels with this whole polar ambient thing I've heard about.
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Post by thekeeper on May 19, 2017 12:11:21 GMT -5
The second definition would suggest that WS may not be exactly specific to winter, but rather nature itself. This is true. When I invented the term "Winter Synth" (and the blog), I initially wanted to call it "Nature Synth", but was concerned that the abbreviation NS would have negative connotations. However, I wish I had stuck to my initial thought, as Winter Synth does kind of restrict the theme to, well, winter. But then, not all Dungeon Synth is about dungeons... Typically, at least from what I've heard, WS albums have a particular sound that differs from some other nature-centric DS albums, perhaps causing WS to literally require the winter element in imagery and representative sound. A lot of WS nods heavily to the twinkly harshness of Die Festung, something you don't hear in many other DS albums. If you supplanted warm imagery instead, it definitely wouldn't match up, these kind of WS albums require that winter reference and inspiration point. These kinds of albums, from what I've heard (not that much admittedly), seem to make up the dearth of the WS genre, enough to set it apart from a more general 'nature synth' kind of definition. Like Mragor's 'Deserted Forest' is Forest Ambient in every sense of the term, but I wouldn't call it WS. Maybe we can say winter synth is nature synth but not all nature synth is winter synth? I think they can be separately definable, at least now. Even if the term Winter Synth was originally meant to encompasses nature-centric stuff in a larger scope, it's been used much more for these kind of solely winter-centric albums by the majority of listeners where we can't divorce the season-specificity from it now. |
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Post by thekeeper on May 19, 2017 12:20:53 GMT -5
This is true. When I invented the term "Winter Synth" (and the blog), I initially wanted to call it "Nature Synth", but was concerned that the abbreviation NS would have negative connotations. However, I wish I had stuck to my initial thought, as Winter Synth does kind of restrict the theme to, well, winter. But then, not all Dungeon Synth is about dungeons... Typically, at least from what I've heard, WS albums have a particular sound that differs from some other nature-centric DS albums, perhaps causing WS to literally require the winter element in imagery and representative sound. A lot of WS nods heavily to the twinkly harshness of Die Festung, something you don't hear in many other DS albums. If you supplanted warm imagery instead, it definitely wouldn't match up, these kind of WS albums require that winter reference and inspiration point. These kinds of albums, from what I've heard (not that much admittedly), seem to make up the dearth of the WS genre, enough to set it apart from a more general 'nature synth' kind of definition. Like Mragor's 'Deserted Forest' is Forest Ambient in every sense of the term, but I wouldn't call it WS. Maybe we can say winter synth is nature synth but not all nature synth is winter synth? I think they can be separately definable, at least now. Even if the term Winter Synth was originally meant to encompasses nature-centric stuff in a larger scope, it's been used much more for these kind of solely winter-centric albums by the majority of listeners where we can't divorce the season-specificity from it now. I guess what I'm trying to say is winter as a concept could be explored under some kind of umbrella of nature synth (because winter is ~nature~), but we've already created the term Winter Synth which is pretty exclusive to winter-themed stuff now where non-winter-themed works wouldn't exactly fit compared to the existing WS canon (maybe I'm wrong, I need to listen to more WS). I guess we could just treat the term Winter Synth as we would 'Nature Synth' regardless of the amount of winter-specific albums there are, just seems weird now though. |
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Post by curwenius on May 19, 2017 14:23:29 GMT -5
What are some of everyone's favorite WS albums? Do you like WS, why or why not? Is the specificity of the genre stifling or too limited, or do you like the aesthetic boundaries? How would you yourself define WS?
My long time preferred winter synth project is (early) Vinterriket. A representative album is Landschaftsmalerische Klangwelten synthetischer Tonkunst. More recently, the synth albums of Moloch (Ukraine) and Voromrak are superb exponents of the genre. Perhaps I'm forgetting some important name. Regarding to a definition of winter synth, I think that sounds, as colours, has their own temperature. I feel that some long release pads, with a timbre close to the subtle whistle of winter landscapes, and their sound variations, can evoke coldness and an iced desolation. It's a kind of sound that you choose, a landscape that you want to paint. There were russian landscape painters specialized in winter landscapes. In the same way, I think winter synth is far to be too limited. Instead, I find it challenging and that led me to make my own winter synth project, time ago. |
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Post by andrewwerdna on May 20, 2017 7:17:12 GMT -5
I remember when I was working on the initial "list of DS albums" back in 2011, one of the hardest decisions was whether to include this stuff. There's obviously a ton of overlap. There are many times when WS sounds like straight up DS, and DS sounds like pure WS. Back in the mid 2000's it seemed like this stuff was everywhere (in the tiny "black ambient" sort of domain), and I thought that was frustrating because it was difficult to find any Mortiis-type stuff. Myspace was how everyone promoted their music online at the time and I remember shooting some messages back and forth on there with the guy behind a project called Ancient Tundra, which I think is a pretty good representation of the genre in its pure form. I don't think it's just about the thematic stuff, there's a fundamental difference in sound. A DS album can be based on a winter theme and still be pure DS and not WS at all. For instance, Jääportit - Kauan koskematon I consider to be pure DS, and perhaps it overlaps WS a bit, but I don't consider it a WS album. Now Jääportit - Uumenissa on the other hand is about as pure WS to my ears as anything. I think maybe the difference might be that WS is more a subgenre of ambient while DS is more a subgenre of black metal. A problem it does have though is where do you draw the line between it and general ambient? Is Biosphere WS? I can't think of any clear examples of WS that is not based around winter as a concept, but I'm sure they're out there. I don't listen to the stuff so I don't really know. I agree "nature synth (NS)" is problematic (a bit off-topic, but thinking of BM as in "bowel movement" makes me chuckle sometimes). But is the "synth" part of the genre tag really necessary? For DS I think the distinction from real instruments is important because it's an inherent part of the sound, while otherwise people would expect that real instruments are always a better representation of a composition than samples. For WS on the other hand, nobody is necessarily expecting real instruments, so the "synth" distinguisher isn't that important. And actually field recordings are often an important part of the mix. "Forest ambient" sounds nice for this kind of stuff, but if the idea is that it's the same kind of thing as WS I certainly wouldn't include artists like Taur Nu Fuin into that mix (Taur Nu Fuin is quintessentially DS imo). I don't really listen to this kind of stuff at all, so I'm just doing a lot of speculation in this post. When I do listen it's quite nice (Uumenissa right now, loving it), but it's just not something that generally keeps my interest and I want to seek out more of. |
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Post by andrewwerdna on May 20, 2017 7:26:23 GMT -5
I don't know... Slap a photo of a snow-covered forest on the cover, slightly alter the song titles toward the frigid, and I don't see how that could not be WS. The sound is what counts, for example Selvmord is fundamentally DS. |
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Post by curwenius on May 20, 2017 9:39:12 GMT -5
I hadn't listened to Mragor before.
At the moment I started listening, I couldn't help thinking that it was pure winter synth. And that thought came exclusively based on the music. Above I wrote that sound has temperature but, after listening to Mragor, I would add that some combinations of notes collaborate with creating an iced ambientation.
In my very personal opinion, labels such as Forest Ambient, Forest Synth or Nature Synth can be applied to a similar style of synth music, but with a far less gloomy atmosphere.
Note, anyway, that the artist himself tagged his music as dark ambient/dungeon synth/electronic/neoclassic. However, we can't now know if he's thinking that they are catchy tags (I think winter synth is catchy only for someone thats specifically looking for winter synth) or he really thinks his music should be classified as he tagged it.
I like Winter Synth as much as Dungeon Synth, I find this thread really interesting.
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i'm a newbie here, thanks for the approval!