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Post by thekeeper on Dec 6, 2019 23:25:33 GMT -5
Its some time around 1995 or 1996. My friend buys a CMI sampler '...even the wolves hid their teeth'. Intrigued by Mortiis and Ildfrost, we keep playing their tracks over and over, louder and louder. We bought all the Mortiis vinyls that Misanthropy Records stocked. We likened it to Vargs ambient stuff on Det Som and Hvis Lyset. We used to call it ''...sort of medieval ambient/lord of the rings soundtrack type stuff...'' and we made mixtapes of all the ambient tracks off all the old great BM albums mixed in with Mortiis. We fell asleep dreaming of dungeons and swords and winter, and eventually became those kinds of people who get stuck in the 90's  I feel that a lot of modern listeners have completely passed over Ildfrost. A lot of that sits right in with DS, in my opinion. Maybe more of the modern scene is less classic industrially inclined than older artists? |
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Post by element0s on Dec 11, 2019 18:26:27 GMT -5
The first music I fell in love with were the soundtracks to my favourite movies (Star Wars, Rankin/Bass cartoons) and games for the SNES/PC such as Warcraft, Megaman, Heroes of Might and Magic, Final Fantasy Zelda, etc etc. As I got older I gravitated towards hard rock and heavy metal music which is where my head and hands are firmly rooted. I'm not so much into black metal though--more power metal, traditional metal and classic doom. I stopped playing video games entirely in college and shifted my focus entirely to the bands that I played in and my teaching career.
A couple years ago I saw that a bunch of my favourite game soundtracks had been uploaded to YouTube and I had a blast revisiting them and I was often stunned at the number of details, motifs and melodies that I recognized from some of my own music. It kind of blew my mind.
I said this much to a friend of mine over a few beers and he asked if I was into Dungeon Synth. I had heard the term used before but hadn't bothered to check any of it out. I think I shrugged it off with a chad-like comment about "DnD Nerds" or something equally silly. But not too long later, I went ahead and did a few searches on YouTube and Bandcamp for Dungeon Synth. I started with artists such as Fief, Sequestered Keep, Old Tower and other heavy-hitters. I liked some of I really dug. Others made me roll my eyes. Then I found "Enchantment of the Ring" by Secret Stairways and I knew that I'd struck something special.
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Post by imp on Jan 12, 2020 11:27:19 GMT -5
I discovered Dungeon synth archives on Youtube and after the initial confusion I devoured most of the albums posted there. DS also became my go to genre when prepping d&d.
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Post by beeebon on Jan 26, 2020 3:30:50 GMT -5
I suppose in a round about way I had been familiar with the concept of Dungeon Synth for years (in that I have heard loads of intro tracks from Black Metal albums) however didn't check it out as a genre until reading about it in a great little 'zine called Weird Walk (article in the first issue which came out last year). It introduced me to the ikes of Fief, Old Tower, Thangorodrim and that kinda thing.
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Post by andrewwerdna on Jan 31, 2020 0:40:36 GMT -5
I've never talked about this because I think it's kind of lame, but the specific moment I discovered dungeon synth was via those short track samples on Amazon, of Crypt of the Wizard.
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Post by beforedust on Feb 6, 2020 13:08:25 GMT -5
Going through Burzum discography and suddenly making a weird face and thinking "what in the fuck is this... wait... why am I enjoying it?"
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Post by VelvetDragonWitch on Jul 21, 2023 18:22:32 GMT -5
It was a divine gift the way I see it.
Years ago I was making my Solstice Wreath, which is when on the winter solstice I make a wreath that I hang until it is burned come the summer solstice.
I was attempting to find music that invoked what I felt. A somber yet glowing joyous content state. That is when I found Winter Synth. I cried because I have never known anything so true sounding. I could not comprehend that any other person could hear what I did from nature let alone that THERE WAS AN ENTIRE GENRE. It spoke to my soul as I am sure is the same for many people. That had naturally led to Dungeon Synth. |
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Post by crystallogic13 on Jul 24, 2023 3:47:21 GMT -5
Enjoyed this comment.. I feel the same with DS being a heaven's gift ( which I feel for only a couple of genres), the time that someone realizes that there's thankfully (today) a whole genre to uncover, with established musicians,fans,places and above all the most perfect atmospheric music one could ever listen to  .. I remember that feeling too, the sense of discovery, a vault of treasures you didn't know existed The thread feels rightfully like a love letter to our beloved genre, as it should... |
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Post by bartizanier on Jul 24, 2023 13:43:46 GMT -5
I cant remember exactly how but somewhere I found a song from Vintr "Drottning"
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Post by wormius on Aug 26, 2023 17:12:42 GMT -5
I think I've had a faint awareness of the genre since maybe the mid-2010s but never dug into it, which is odd considering how much I love soundtracks for certain computer games I play/played, and as a kid loved Enya's album The Celts (which if it doesn't count, is definitely adjacent). But then late last year this video popped up in my suggested feed and kicked off a new obsession Galaxy - 50 dungeon synth styles with examples www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPsErYTYubk |
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Post by daudibaldrs on Aug 26, 2023 20:37:28 GMT -5
Hi ! With burzum Daudi baldrs...
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Post by abhorthus on Sept 19, 2023 19:39:28 GMT -5
Long post alert: This is my first post on this forum:
It wasnt called Dungeon Synth back when i got interested in this type of music. I have been a metalhead since i was 12 or so, got into Death metal a few years into my lifelong love of this kind of music. Then in the early 90s, along came Black Metal, and with it, its haunting sounds, especially with the intros and outros on some of the albums...i fell right down that rabbit hole. I didnt even attempt to climb out. Im still down here!
I was infatuated with Født til å Herske by Mortiis when he released it for the first time. This music was the perfect soundtrack to some of the stuff i was painting. (I was still in college back then, pursuing Art and Design. )
Then Ånden som gjorde Opprør showed up in the mail one day and i was beside myself. I knew then that Mortiis would be my go-to for this kind of music.
By this time, i was ready to make my own haunting beautiful music. I was full time in college, and worked a nightshift at a local factory, so i busted my ass and saved up for a new casio synthesizer. I loved that thing so much.
I didnt really know too much about recording music back then. I learned to play along with Ånden, and Født...
I was into my guitar, but not as much as my synth. Id spend hours, playing around with all the voices it could make.
Unfortunately my living situation became untenable, my ex sold most all of my gear one day while i was at college. He was a dopehead...
I ended up moving to Norway. (Im from the UK, my dad was Norwegian...)
Long story short, life stuff happened and i never really got back into making/playing music until sometime later. In the very late 90s early 2000s, i got into a course on music prod and sound engineering. I still was listening to metal etc, but my music tastes had grown a lot more. I loved trance and house, and drum and bass. I got hooked on making stuff like this at the studio. I was doing an internship kind of thing in there. I was also pleased that i had access to synthesizers again. They had some really nice ones there. The studio manager had no issue with me hanging out after hours, so I spend a lot of time in there. I never got to properly record anything of my unfortunately.
I managed to re-learn some of those old Mortiis albums though.
After my time at the studio ended, i ended up traveling for a bit, until i finally went back to Kent where i had spent some of my childhood.
I worked full time on minimum wage, so i was unable to pursue my music dreams. Life sucked for a few years, until i finally moved to the USA.
I sold everything I had (which at that time wasnt much), i was gutted i was unable to ship all of my LOTR sword collection to the US...
Back on topic:
Ive been in the US now since 08. I have slowly been getting my record collection back together...it is nowhere near what it once was.
Between job hopping, moving around a lot (hubby was in the military, so a lot of moving house was a thing for a long time) and other life stuff, ive been too busy to do anything about making music...
I had almost given up on the idea, cos it seemed like we'd never settle down.
Until recently.
We got tickets to go to a metal fest in Norway, called Midgardsblot. I was over the moon!
Later, i found out that Mortiis was gonna be playing live there, and i was totally mind blown. I Have always been a huge fan! Mortiis had previously played a bunch in the US, but due to work related issues i was unable to get to one of his shows.
Then covid hit, making that possibility harder still.
Anyway, i watched Mortiis at Midgardsblot, and was blown away ... he did the Spirit of Rebellion set, and it was amazing. I knew right then and there, i need to get back to music making again. So im busting my ass to get the gear i need, once again.
I hope soon to be producing some Dungeon synth really soon.
In the meantime, I am hopping allover social media looking for more to add to my want list on Bandcamp and Spotify.
Ive fallen in love with Old Tower, Erang, Throne, and a bunch more that i cant remember names off the top of my head. This beautiful music moves me, and i am excited to delve deeper still!
Looking forward to familiarizing myself with some of your projects!
Feel free to send me your recommendations!
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Post by tomasz.goblyn on Sept 29, 2023 6:57:02 GMT -5
My story is similar to most of yours. Probably like most of you, I treat this post as a trip down memory lane (which is usually interesting only for the traveller  ). Sooo… Around 2010-11 I started getting more into black metal. To be honest, before that, I associated the genre more with the ridiculous image of the artists and bizarre videos like Immortal - "The Call of the Winter Moon" (btw. now I love it). Back then I was playing in a crusty punk band and bands like Darkthrone started to resonate with my lo-fi grim soul. For a few months, I underwent an accelerated education by digging into all the major releases and artists. It's worth mentioning that I've been active in the Polish punk scene since my early teens, and it was important to me that the artist wasn't connected to some fucked-up ideologies (which, looking at, for example, Polish black metal of the 90s, was a real plague). During my musical search, I often came across synth stuff. I didn't even know the name dungeon synth I called it “black metal ambient” and I loved the simplicity, primitivism and hidden beauty behind it. Since the things I like usually quickly become things I want to do actively (while still being not quite serious about the whole genre) one cold winter day I created a one-man project called Ightorn (yes, it's that evil prince from The Gummi Bears, which btw is one of my favourite childhood cartoons). In one day I put together two "ambient" tracks in fruity loops (it was one of my maybe two tries to make music on the computer - never again 😛). The tracks were full of “funny” samples like dolphin speech, howling wolves and of course thunder (which I found the most BM thing nature can give) xd That day I recorded also a primitive raw black metal song. Two really bad riffs, drums programmed in FL and screaming that my friend called “pissed off Donald Duck). I was done for that day, but I still wanted to refine the tracks. Unfortunately, my computer screwed up and I lost all the samples and projects. However, that day I emailed these early versions to a colleague, so I had some kind of “backup”. Around 2017 my friend reminded me about this project. Once more I started searching on the internet to see if I could find more "black metal ambient" projects and was amazed to discover that the number of projects is now huge and the genre is now called "dungeon synth". “What a great name for this genre!” - I thought to myself. Just a couple of months before I released a demo called “Dungeon Rock Demo” with my new “goblin punk” band and everything “dungeon” got my special interest. I have been a DS regular ever since, digging mostly for noisy, primitive and weird stuff. In general - stuff that goblin would like. Somewhere around the holidays of 2018, I created a cover for my old Ightorn project and I liked the cover so much that I decided to upload this whole crappy, unfinished demo on Bandcamp. It's still there: ightorn.bandcamp.com/album/prastare-knieje-dunwyn-2You can check it out if you find interesting DS with dolphins and wolves on the vocals. xD  And here I am. Today I consider myself a huge DS head. I’ve got a new DS project - "berdische". Even though my approach is still rooted in punk attitude and primitivism in general - I treat it way more seriously. I consider it as a musical platform for my ongoing interest in medieval history, religion and esoterism. Two weeks ago I played my first show and I have to say I put a lot of effort into it: recording backtracks on the Tascam 4track (which during the show I use like a mixer/instrument), making visuals, thinking about how to make the audience participate in the show cause I find simple listening and looking at a guy playing toy synthesizer kinda boring and so on… I am working on new material, which will be devoted to medieval gnosis, heresies and mysticism. Probably I will play some more shows back here in Poland. As I see it things are looking good for the dungeon synth. It's heartwarming to see the genre grow, evolve and explore while still leaving room for both: seriousness and ridicule. |
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Post by eventideknight on Oct 4, 2023 10:43:20 GMT -5
I accidentally joined a group chat with a majority of rock/metal fans. One day, I saw them discussing a type of music called Dungeon Synth, and I remember that the album was "flies the coop II" produced by Hole Dweller. When I listened, I was surprised to find that this kind of music could take me to a strange realm. However, I was engrossed in exploring G-Funk/R&B/Trance at the time, so I set Dungeon Synth aside.
Last month, I discovered that Bandcamp has a lot of good music, and from that day on, I will log in and take a look every day. One day while searching for something interesting to listen to, I found a very unique cover, which was Dyvyná's "The Temptation Of Triglav's Children". I couldn't help but fall in love with his music, and now I am listening to this wonderful music while typing.
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Post by magicwillow on Oct 17, 2023 7:02:45 GMT -5
I am gonna show my age here (or lack thereof) when I say that I was introduced to Dungeon Synth by the ThisExists video. Then Fief II was reccomended to me on YouTube back in 2017. It was kind of an epiphany for me, because it reminded me of my favourite games growing up, Oblivion, Skyrim, Age of Empires etc. And I loved that people were still making music in that style. I was already into ambient and was familiar with black metal and darker dungeon synth from my time in the metal community and looking up DS on bandcamp; but Fief really started an adventure down a rabbit hole for me that ended with me making 6 dungeon synth projects, and 10 or so albums.
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.. I remember that feeling too, the sense of discovery, a vault of treasures you didn't know existed 
).
