How did you discover dungeon synth?

[andrewwerdna]

Apr 12, 2018 19:03:46 GMT -5 dungeonsnake said:

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

I think you're just about the only person who I've directly introduced dungeon synth to that has really gotten into it, and I've pitched it to a lot of folks.


My story is similar to Curwenius (though my discovery was all online). I was really into black metal, particularly Emperor and Burzum.  By a stroke of luck the first black metal album I bought was a cd that had the self-titled EP and Wrath of the Tyrant on it.  I thought it was horrible for a long time but for some reason I kept coming back to it.  Eventually something clicked and it became one of my favorite albums.  So I was really into Emperor's early period.  I got pretty good at playing "I Am the Black Wizards" on guitar.  I read that the bassist of Emperor had a side-project so I checked it out. When I saw the album cover of Crypt of the Wizard and heard "En Sirkel av Kosmisk Kaos," I was perplexed, but a handful of listens later I was obsessively hooked on all of his Era 1 material. I can't remember whether I got into Mortiis before Burzum's prison albums, though I really loved both right around the same time period. Also Wongraven and Lord Wind. And I also was big on any sort of symphonic black metal. I remember at one point I sent a Myspace message to Limbonic Art saying that Morfeus should've done solo keyboard music and that the other stuff was just bringing it down. Haha, that's pretty embarrassing to think back on.

It had a very distinct sound. Something about basic rompler synth presets/keyboards playing simple mysterious-sounding melodies with little training, it had just an innate magic to my ears. I couldn't explain why but I always felt that there was a mountain of this stuff hiding in obscurity. After much effort I found a handful of albums that were right on point, confirming my suspicions, and a ton of stuff that was very close but still didn't have that specific weird sound and vibe I was looking for. When I discovered the Asmodian Coven blog that's when it really became apparent to me that it actually was its own genre and there was a bunch of lost gems to prove it. So then I made that Seven Wonders album, and it seemed like the few people that listened to it, even black metal people, didn't understand the context.  I figured nobody was listening to or talking about dungeon synth at all anymore, so I started the blog and made a list of all the albums I knew of. A bunch of people messaged me about more old dungeon synth classics (such as Mitternact I learned about from Eugene/the Russian community) and an increasing amount of new stuff that was coming out, so I kept adding to the list and the rest is history. It's bizarre how much has changed and how quickly. It was not long ago that I was at a dead-end in my search and was listening to many hours of Radio Rivendell because that was all I could think of to find more (I never did), and now there is far more pure DS than I can ever hope to listen to, much less fully appreciate.

[zerointerno]

Funny enough, I stumbled the DS vibe back in approx 2003 I think, when I got my hands on Guitar Pro (v3) and was playing with its features, trying to figure out if I could clay up anything that makes sense. I was excited by the feel of that toy magic I was able to control, but I considered my tunes and the overall midi-sound affair something like exercises in futility (who would want general midi sounds when the itching of distorted guitar is expected, right?) so back then I hardly bothered to even show them off to anyone.

About a year later I discovered Black Metal through Burzum, Emperor and Abigor, and some of their synth intros & interludes made me like "wow, the guys play with the same magic too". For years I hardly could think of outlining the genre, but I treasured all the relevant tracks I could get my hand on into a dedicated folder for some unclear reason (No Mortiis was included tho, but Thou Shalt Suffer was welcom'd), so when the genre manifested and declared independence (somewhere in 2012 iirc) - I was well-fed with the vibe already.

[detoxscission]

In reality, I discovered the genre only a few months ago, but I guess I had known what it was for some time, as I had both Mortiis' "Crypt of the Wizard" and Burzum's "Hliðskjálf" for a few years (Not that I regularly listened to either). Anyways, I had been on-again, off-again listening to Nest for a number of years when one day I looked at the genres people had listed and someone said Dungeon Synth and I didn't know what it was. Looked it up, fell in love with Lunar Womb, Dark Ages, Deorc Weg and the aforementioned Burzum & Mortiis albums and here we are. Still only scraped the surface really, but i'm enjoying myself. I've only come across a couple groups I haven't liked so far, which is a good sign I suppose.

[secludedalchemist]

Listened to the Burzum prison albums when I was in high school and thought they were a bit strange, to be honest. Didn't have any other interaction with DS until late 2016 when I was trying to get back into making dark ambient music. Went on to Bandcamp and saw Taur-nu-Fuin through the dark ambient tag. Listened to it, loved it, and saw "dungeon synth" under the tags. Thought it was an intriguing name for a genre and started to listen to other projects under the tag (Det Svarta Landet, Chaucerian Myth, Effluvium) and fell in love with their music, as well. Discovered that there was a forum and Facebook group dedicated to DS and here I am.

[stormcrow]

I remember when we used to call it dark ambient, back in the mid 90s... At that time, only the prison albums by Burzum had a bit of popularity, at least here in italy. Then I was totally blown by Mortiis' The Stargate, which is still my absolute DS favourite.
Recently, I got much deeper into black metal and found out that this style of Music has an own life, history and...oh...a name too!

So I have been inspired to buy a master keyboard and try writing and recording that "Mortiis" way, blending it with all my other influences like HM, soundtracks, medieval and classical music. That's almost how Sidereal Fortress has born
Now it's my one and only active music project and I'm 100% into it. Never felt better, to be honest.

[dungeonsnake]

I was also initially exposed to dungeon synth through Burzum as well. Initially, I wasn't a fan of the Burzum synth albums. I thought the synth songs on the early albums worked in context within the rest of the album, but I wouldn't ever have listened to them on their own. As I said, it wasn't until Andrew Werdna introduced me to the genre as a whole that I really started to appreciate it. Now, I really enjoy the Burzum synth songs.

[thynelyghtillusory]

For me it was from black metal intros and old Mortiis (similiar to alot of people I think), used to make compilation playlists of BM intros haha, might still have some cds of them somewhere. Been into electronic and ambient music for absolutely years but wasn't aware of the community surrounding DS music until the last couple of years but only recently started to get directly involved, I just had a handful of artists I liked and BM intros and some of my own keyboard noodlings and soundscapes.
Funny though, got into DS through being involved in BM and now listen to and make Dungeon Synth way more!

[dedran]

I used to listen to a lot of metal as a teenager, but often felt as I got older that the emotional content was lacking or was sacrificed in favor of emphasizing technical prowess or shock value. I was starting to get heavily into ambient and classical music around the same time via Philip Glass/Arvo Part for classical, and Brian Eno/Aphex Twin/Stars of the Lid for ambient. I used to listen to stuff like Radiohead and Sigur Ros and post-rock bands, but found that synths and traditional instruments had a richer, fuller sound capable of evoking more powerful atmospheres than the usual rock and metal instruments.

Having grown bored of metal as a whole and finding stuff like power metal or symphonic metal to be too cheesy (even though it was incorporating synths and other instruments in a way that gave me some hope), I was about to give up on the whole thing until I discovered Burzum. I also got into some doom bands around the same time, like Skepticism, Evoken, and more obscure stuff like Deinonychus, which made me realize that metal could be melancholic and emotional after all. Somewhere along the way, I heard some of Burzum's synth stuff like Han som Reiste and Tomhet, and I initially didn't know what to think, except that I thought that it was a weird mixture of RPG music (my only reference points at the time would have been JRPG composers like Uematsu and some vaguely MIDI-ish stuff) and medieval music (which I was very interested in but knew nothing about). However, I thought it was kind of cheesy and under-produced compared with more professional synth artists like Aphex Twin, Steve Roach, and Biosphere. I guess it reminded me too much of Final Fantasy and Zelda music, which I used to love when I was very young but was trying to get away from for pretentious reasons regarding its lack of professionalism and lo-fi-ness, especially when compared with genuine classical music.

I then heard Hlidskjalf, and Der Tod Wuotans in particular stood out to me and wound up being one of the most atmospheric pieces of music I'd ever heard. I'd been reading some of Varg's writings at the time concerning traditional Norse religion and his desire to transport his listeners back into that world -- in this case, perhaps to a cold, dark, snowy night somewhere in Norway, thousands of years ago. I always attempted to see mental images and let my imagination wander while listening to music, but this was different. This might sound weird, but I want to say that it was one of a handful of early experiences that I had where I felt like I was tapping into some kind of genetic memories passed on from my ancestors that pertained to early European natural landscapes, and the lives of the people who might have spent their days in such places.

I started wondering more about why some of Burzum's music was able to do this, while traditional ambient composers seemed to be doing something sort of different. Before long, I was listening to Ildjarn's Hardangervidda, as well as stuff like Lord Wind and Wongraven. I eventually discovered Mortiis, who I thought was much closer than either Wongraven or Lord Wind to Burzum for tapping into the same ancient atmospheres. That said, I just assumed that all of this stuff was one branch of "dark ambient" and didn't think too much of it until the dungeon synth blog introduced me to Lord Lovidicus years later, rekindling my interest and making me realize that there was a lot of amazing music to explore. And the rest is history, as they say.

[Deleted]

I already was a big fan of Dead Can Dance, and then I started listening to Black Metal circa 1996-97, my friend Xavier (Maelifell's second member) and I bought lots of albums and demos from the french distros Adipocere and Holy Records (and later Velvet International). One of our highschool mates was the guitar player of the NSBM band Ornaments of Sin (founded years later)...

We quickly became big fans of Wongraven, Mortiis, Pazuzu, Die Verbannten Kinder Evas...

One year later, or two, I became friend with Garvalf, which is also on this forum, and he made me discover tons of other stuffs (like Perunwit, which is not properly a Dungeon Synth band, but...)

I would also say that many video games' musics (on PC or Amstrad CPC) « prepared » me for this genre.

[heidis]

As with many others, I first got into metal, I'd say around the age of 15, though not black metal at first. The first stuff I came to love was melodic, symphonic, viking and folk death metal like Ensiferum, Wintersun, Finntroll, Children of Bodom(including Inearthed). In fact, one of the first instrumental tracks from a metal band I fell in love with was this www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYOczRyOAko and it's still one of my favourites.

Soon enough I got into black metal too, and started listening to all the classic Scandinavian stuff, but Dimmu Borgir was my biggest love then. The tracks Sorgens Kammer and Det Nye Riket from the first two albums were so dark and beautiful: www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDeQI949nIA and www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfhDSnJ5Upg

Being a teenager, I thought it was cool with all these dark and depressive sounds, and I thought it was even cooler that you could achieve that stuff without it being a metal song, and when I heard Burzum's prison albums that feeling increased even more. The raw evil of this track still amazes me www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnH0TVxMQtI

Many years went by and I never really thought about if there was more like this, or even a genre dedicated to it, but I mostly picked up an instrumental track from various metal bands here and there and put them all into a playlist. It was only recently I started really diving into the genre, discovering the joy of buying tapes and listening to this music in physical format, and even started to learn how to make my own music.

[Ropp]

This one seems like a proper thread for my first post.

I started listening to heavy and folk metal about at 12, and I later went for the harder stuff. Videogames were also there, emphasizing click & point adventures and classic strategy games, and role playing games (mainly Lord of the Rings and World of Darkness) started atmost at the same time. I wouldn't try black metal until about my 21s, and some years later I would find atmospheric black metal as a really nice company as I worked alone in the university's labs. I started listening to lots of new albums from the Atmospheric Black Metal Albums channel on youtube, and there I would find the first album from Ephemeral Landscapes: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yt4l1T-XqU

I totally fell in love with it (and it's still one of my favorites). It reminded me of summer nights playing videogames alone in the basement of my parents house, sharing music online with unknown people or playing rol games with friends. So, I would start looking for the name of that genre that inspired me so much, therefore knowing Dungeon Synth.

That happened a year ago. Now I'm still getting to know many of the sub-genres and listening to lots of new artists. I'm also starting to compose some personal stuff at home with reaper (I hope I can release a demo sometime soon). I miss having the chance to share this taste for DS with friends, since no one of them likes anything of it. That is how I ended up looking for forums related to DS and hence, here.

[strankez]

I discovered DS when i've listened for the first time to Burzum - Hliðskjálf, I really loved it. Then I discovered Old Tower and Secret Stairways

[Hordes Of The Unholy]

Like a lot of you guys, I started with Burzum, with the ambient stuff from Filosofem and Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. At first I didn't enjoy Dauði Baldrs as much but eventually it grew on me. Fast forward 15 years, I'm listening to the stuff again...

[theunborn]

I remember buying the Født Til Å Herske CD by Mortiis in the 90's.
After that - I was sold.

[wyverngarden]

I was aware of Burzum and Mortiis (and Danzig's Black Aria, which I actually bought) in the 90's but never really got into it. Then things were much more cliquish, music wasn't just available to check out. You had to make a real commitment (which i think has some positive aspects that are lost today). So I was more into industrial, neofolk and the like, but this meant I was not into metal (I mean BM) they rarely crossed in those years. Only maybe when the book Lords of Chaos came out but that came too late. I mean your friends and such were also defined by the music you listened to, it went that deep. Maybe it was the times or maybe because we were all young and stupid. There was again this heightened, exhilarating commitment but also this idiotic cliquishness and dismissal of things simply because they were in the wrong scene. Yet you couldn't have one without the other.

So 2-3 years ago I was randomly listening around Youtube and discovered Til Det Bergens Skyggene, then wondered in my life how i had missed such amazing music, and it motivated me really to research the whole genre and catch up on all the 90's stuff. Today most of my listening is in three scenes: DS, early new age and what I'd like to call "80's bedroom synth" (Enno Velthuys, Aart Zwaans, Colin Potter, Matt Young, Kevin O'Neill, early Ian Boddy, Paul Nagle, Lauri Paisley etc. -- one could also consider Jim Kirkwood in this sense), and fourth-world minimalism (mostly Italian and Japanese artsits). somehow the mix of ALL these informs what I'm trying to do musically and which I have no idea how to categorize, but that's another story.