How did you discover dungeon synth?

[theinquisitor]

For all its beauty, splendour and recent growth, Dungeon Synth is still a relatively obscure genre. It's hard to describe but it's even harder to find. So I wanted to know, how did you first come across the genre?

I was over at a friends house in July last year and we were both into black metal, listened to a lot of tapes and went to gigs. One day he mentioned he had ordered the Hero Quest 25th anniversary edition board game and said we should have a night of playing Hero Quest with Dungeon synth. What is this, 'Dungeon Synth'? I enquired. He put Old Tower's 'Rise of the Specter' on for me and it clicked with me immediately. I did not know I was lost but there I was found. I loved DS the second I heard it and went away searching for more. I bought a keyboard, having never touched one in my life, and got to work composing my first album the next month.

[Båvingr]

I was studying in the library last year and just dicking around on Bandcamp to avoid doing any actual work and found the "dungeon synth" tag... This led to me reading this article daily.bandcamp.com/2017/03/30/dungeon-synth-list/ and started listening to Old Tower, Sequestered, Fief, Spectral etc... and thinking "hey this sounds like Summoning minus the black metal"!

I think I was aware of the term before, from Kaptain Carbon's articles on No Clean Singing, but never pursued it - silly me...

PS, impressive turn around time for your 1st album theinquisitor and I can't believe Hero Quest is 25 years old!

[thekeeper]

I became aware of the term sometime in the first half of 2012 after coming across Forgotten Pathways' Shrouded in Mystery on last.fm or something. I noticed the tag 'Dungeon Synth' and pursued that further, soon coming across Asmodian Coven, andrewwerdna's Dungeon Synth blog, and the BC community in its youth. Didn't start releasing DS music until 2013 under Caoranach and eventually started Path of Silence in 2016, also recording as Cloak & Daggere. The early online days were good.

[crystallogic13]

I was late to the party when in 2016 while for a hundredth time looking for Summoning like bands I bumped into I think Encyclopedia's Metallum thread with the term "Dungeon Synth".. From there I listened to Depressive Silence demo II (I think II? the newly re-released "Mourning" anyway) and I was amazed such genre existed and I didn't know.. From then on I have gone and partly/mostly finished quest to listen to most/all things up to this date (not thaaaaaaaaaaaaaat many compared to other genres)..

A great genre which combines favourite genres: metal and electronic, with a great doze of video games music , epic ost-medieval and ambient into the mix!

[Sargeburt]

Discovered Lamentation years ago on youtube and fell in love with their discography. Back then i was heavy into DSBM and Raw Black Metal so i stayed near this and didn't dig more into similiar sounds but over the time i always came back to Lamentation.
Luckily early 2016 (i had really enough of the whole Black Metal Shit and lost myself into much VGM and Jazz/Blues) i doing my daily business on facebook and see the Dungeon Synth site on my feed. After some research and hardcore listening to Depressive Silence, Gothmog and Silent Cabin i close the old doors behind me, throw the key away and starting my journy trough the realm of Dungeon Synth. Honestly one of the best decisions i ever made.

[nazgaldracul]

First time listening to DS was checking out the prison albums by Burzum. I really enjoyed those albums, but I always saw them referred to as dark ambient. When I first came over dungeon synth as a genre was when lurking /mu/ a couple of years ago. Someone made a thread about it and I was immediatly hooked.

[toodarkpark]

By reading about it on the NWN forum and then checking it out from there.

[Tyrannus]

Well I remember listening to Agalloch’s “Pale Folklore” a lot in like 2010-2011 and their track “The Misshapen Steed” is pretty DS so with that band I first became acquainted with the notion of synths in black metal. Their track “Foliorum Viridium” really sealed the deal though and it reminded me a lot of the music of Metroid Zero Mission which I was playing a lot of at the time. Anyway around 2011-2012 I started listening to Burzum in earnest and got more into his prison albums and recall them being tagged under “Fantasy music” on rateyourmusic (I think they changed that in 2013? I’d have to check) and anyway I think that was around when the term “dungeon synth” must have been coined since I rarely saw it called fantasy music after that point. I didn’t really listen to a lot after my initial foray in probably 2012 into like wongraven and I think a little Depressive silence and Mortiis. Then I think it was probably November 2016 when I noted some people online talking about it so me and nebulosa kinda both decided to make it around that point. I made some stuff in 12/2016 and then the rest is history. So it’s been on my radar in some capacity I’d say for about 8 years, more or less. But I’ve just been more into it the past year and a half or so

EDIT: in that lull of 2012-2016 where I wasn’t that into it there were some flirtations still. Tracks like “tortured overture” by drowning the light and this:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=SCLC4-wkARc

[emerge]

While searching for completely unrelated music, I came across it on a RYM list that included Skarpseian, I'd been listening to Crypt of the Wizard since the mid-00's, and it clicked.

[Tyrannus]

Mar 9, 2018 19:53:31 GMT -5 Tyrannus said:

Well I remember listening to Agalloch’s “Pale Folklore” a lot in like 2010-2011 and their track “The Misshapen Steed” is pretty DS so with that band I first became acquainted with the notion of synths in black metal. Their track “Foliorum Viridium” really sealed the deal though and it reminded me a lot of the music of Metroid Zero Mission which I was playing a lot of at the time. Anyway around 2011-2012 I started listening to Burzum in earnest and got more into his prison albums and recall them being tagged under “Fantasy music” on rateyourmusic (I think they changed that in 2013? I’d have to check) and anyway I think that was around when the term “dungeon synth” must have been coined since I rarely saw it called fantasy music after that point. I didn’t really listen to a lot after my initial foray in probably 2012 into like wongraven and I think a little Depressive silence and Mortiis. Then I think it was probably November 2016 when I noted some people online talking about it so me and nebulosa kinda both decided to make it around that point. I made some stuff in 12/2016 and then the rest is history. So it’s been on my radar in some capacity I’d say for about 8 years, more or less. But I’ve just been more into it the past year and a half or so

EDIT: in that lull of 2012-2016 where I wasn’t that into it there were some flirtations still. Tracks like “tortured overture” by drowning the light and this:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=SCLC4-wkARc

Ah looks like 2014 is when rym made the switch

[Pilgrim's Shadow]

It was 2009 when i fell in love with Burzum's prison albums, and i had to try and made some synth music for myself.
I was a teenager, didn't know about "Dungeon Synth" or anything, but i was deeply inspired by these specific albums, also by Filosofem.
Slowly, i stoped making such music, and i actully left Black Metal aside, and started listening to other stuff.

In 2014 i returned to listen to Black Metal and the ambients around it. It became a great passion. I looked for bands similler to Summoning, Which led me into knowing Druadan Forest. The rest of the story is obvious i believe

[skull bearer]

The first dungeon synth artist I remember listening to was Old Tower, although for whatever reason I cannot remember how I came across it. However, from the beginning I loved the art style and feeling that all of their releases gave me, and after that I delved deeper into the genre with other contemporary bands, before making my way back towards things like Depressive Silence.

As non-kvlt as this may sound, one of my first exposures to black-metal-themed ambient was "Celestite" by Wolves in the Throne Room, and that certainly carved out a space in my brain for keyboards with a gloomy, enthralling atmosphere.

And look at me now, recording my own project and posting on the dungeon synth boards. What a time to be alive.

[PHOTOPHOBIA]

I tagged one of my Instrumental albums Midevil checked the related got lost on BC and eventually found DEORC WEG Ive since done my homework and went back thanx to Dungeon Synth Archives on youtube

[dungeonsnake]

I was introduced by the author of the "Dungeon Synth" blog.

[curwenius]

In the 90's I was a real fan of symphonic black metal. And the more synth played in it, the better. Some keyboard intros were very climatic and moving, and I started thinking "Why there is no an album with such atmosphere, but only with keyboards?" I used to visit a CD store and its owner (now a long time friend), when I told him my question, said: of course there are that kind of artists, one of them it's called Mortiis, an ex-Emperor.
Then it started. After Mortiis I discovered Wongraven, Thou Shalt Suffer, late Burzum. I remember having bought there the first album of Elffor "Into the Dark Forest (1998)" right after it was launched, when Elffor was still more close to Summoning than DS.
But it was only in 2013 when I found in a blog an album tagged as "Dungeon Synth". I thought "Man, you aren't talking about... oh, yes you are". The term was perfect for the genre.
Then I found the Andrew's blog, and I was ecstatic when I saw my first project Mitternacht listed as a reference of Dungeon Synth. Then I contacted him and I finally reached this forum. It has been more than 20 years since I met DS. In fact, it was DS what gave me the drive for starting Mitternacht in 2001.
Well, memories... sometimes they are enjoyable.