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Post by ranseur on Oct 1, 2018 16:42:30 GMT -5
I guess somebody should tell them that half of us don't use midi at all. But laptop sets can be kind of boring without some kind of visual stuff but you know, lot ds live lately is all old keyboards.
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Post by Lord Tetrarch on Oct 11, 2018 19:17:16 GMT -5
DS has a weird small reputation. I've heard from a number of more 'veteran' BM guys that these 90s DS tapes we enjoy so much these days were often pretty lambasted in their day. Zines and distros had to put like "WARNING: NOT METAL", which one one hand makes sense because some people just aren't into electronic or keyboard stuff, but it sounds like it got made fun of more than we'd expect. I'm sure Mortiis received his fair share of flak for wearing a troll mask and making fantasy keyboard music, which just sounds setup for locker-pushing. Of course I can't speak much to just how often the 90s tapes were shot down in the BM scene, I can only go off of what I've heard. I'm assuming some of the more highly praised projects had an easier time, like Depressive Silence. DS still gets made fun of these days as 'basement nerd keyboard music', which isn't technically wrong, and that's probably a positive for most of us. I think if DS was mostly hi-fi stuff, it'd get made fun of less and taken more as a soundtrack kind of genre than this lo-fi synth BM related kind of thing. As far as outright attacks though, I've rarely if ever have seen these, and I'd bet these people aren't being totally honest. Attacking DS would have to be a pretty far-reaching projection. DS has a fairly supportive community, I don't know how many would be put off by the naysayers. When I was starting Dungeons Deep Records, the ambient scene was definitely for dorks - which I liked. The black metal scene at the time seemed so overdone.
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Post by andrewwerdna on Oct 13, 2018 12:23:53 GMT -5
Hey, welcome to the forum Lord Tetrarch. I was very interested in your label back in the day, and particularly enjoyed the first two Forgotten Land albums. Don't know if you remember me, but I'm the guy behind Valscharuhn and sent you my first demo around 2007 or so, which you were kind enough to give constructive feedback for. I remember your label mostly focused on dark ambient, but there was a bit of DS and some atmospheric black metal. So it seemed you definitely had your feet in both worlds. Did you ever get any resistance from purist BM types? I've talked about DS with a number of BM people over the years and my experience is usually a politely feigned interest, but generally they don't really care one way or the other. I feel like for BM people to really go on the offensive against DS they'd have to disown a lot of bands that are BM canon, especially Burzum, which I don't see happening. But dark ambient/ritual/drone/etc I don't really know too well how they relate to these other genres. I feel like Cold Meat Industry types actually look down on BM and probably DS as well, even though Mortiis was on the label. I'd be really curious to learn what they think about Mortiis' resurgence, which they must be aware of since they did that reunion show. Did you have much interaction with CMI folks?
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Post by Lord Tetrarch on Oct 25, 2018 13:28:34 GMT -5
Hey, welcome to the forum Lord Tetrarch . I was very interested in your label back in the day, and particularly enjoyed the first two Forgotten Land albums. Don't know if you remember me, but I'm the guy behind Valscharuhn and sent you my first demo around 2007 or so, which you were kind enough to give constructive feedback for. I remember your label mostly focused on dark ambient, but there was a bit of DS and some atmospheric black metal. So it seemed you definitely had your feet in both worlds. Did you ever get any resistance from purist BM types? I've talked about DS with a number of BM people over the years and my experience is usually a politely feigned interest, but generally they don't really care one way or the other. I feel like for BM people to really go on the offensive against DS they'd have to disown a lot of bands that are BM canon, especially Burzum, which I don't see happening. But dark ambient/ritual/drone/etc I don't really know too well how they relate to these other genres. I feel like Cold Meat Industry types actually look down on BM and probably DS as well, even though Mortiis was on the label. I'd be really curious to learn what they think about Mortiis' resurgence, which they must be aware of since they did that reunion show. Did you have much interaction with CMI folks? Thank you for the warm welcome andrewwerdna. I still have every demo I ever received boxed up at home, I will go home tonight and see if I can find yours. We focused on what we attempted to coin "black ambient". I thought what we were doing at the time was somewhat profound, as most ambient in the scene was the offshoot of a current or past black metal musician. I was interested solely in the ambient aspect of things, knowing very well our style was rooted in black metal. The entire aesthetic of old school dungeon synth is essentially the same as black metal. In my opinion, Dungeon Synth is simply a term for ambient music that is an offshoot of black metal - and anything sporting the correct aesthetic can pretty much be DS if you call it that. At least, that's what is was at first. In recent years, DS has become it's own fully formed genre, and definitely has it's own sound. But stuff like Depressive Silence, Mortiis, and other similar albums from the 90's were no more DS than they were Dark Ambient/Black Ambient. Dungeon Synth is just a great title someone came up with to finally define our style of music that before had no real name (is it dark ambient? is it black metal? No one knew for sure back then what to call it). Dungeons Deep Records existed in the dark ages of dungeons synth music. At a time where it had not taken on that specific genre title, but the IDEA of making ambient that survived in the shadows of black metal, with themes of forest, nature, winter, fantasy - not themes of extremism or religion or all the bullshit that plagues the black metal scene. I remember CMI back in the day - but they were dark ambient. Dungeon Deep was not dark ambient, and we always knew this, which is why I wanted to call it Black Ambient, but the name did not stick. To answer your question - No, BM scene people never really gave us shit. Not that I know of. The people that came to our record label to buy music were people that were like myself, looking for something different in the extreme music scene. And I think it's really cool to see what it has grown into today.
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Post by thekeeper on Oct 30, 2018 10:43:16 GMT -5
Lord Tetrarch, good to have you here. As far as I've looked into 'black ambient' is certainly its own distinct thing these days but I'm not sure how the term was brought about. I assume it was much later and projects were retroactively categorized. I usually hear it in reference to the more odd LLN projects, Abruptum, Enmity, Sutekh Hexen, etc. Like more on the dark ambient side but a bit noisier and with black metal vocals. Despite dungeon synth's connection to Cold Meat Industry, I get a more industrial vibe from black ambient than I do dungeon synth, or at least dungeon synth these days. I always felt DS had too much melody and songwriting to be considered a genre of ambient music proper, but I probably have narrower definitions of 'ambient' than most. Black ambient seems much more commonly accepted among bm fans than ds, not exactly sure why. Maybe because many ds artists now are further away from the black metal connection? Not sure.
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Post by Lord Tetrarch on Nov 1, 2018 8:55:23 GMT -5
Lord Tetrarch , good to have you here. As far as I've looked into 'black ambient' is certainly its own distinct thing these days but I'm not sure how the term was brought about. I assume it was much later and projects were retroactively categorized. I usually hear it in reference to the more odd LLN projects, Abruptum, Enmity, Sutekh Hexen, etc. Like more on the dark ambient side but a bit noisier and with black metal vocals. Despite dungeon synth's connection to Cold Meat Industry, I get a more industrial vibe from black ambient than I do dungeon synth, or at least dungeon synth these days. I always felt DS had too much melody and songwriting to be considered a genre of ambient music proper, but I probably have narrower definitions of 'ambient' than most. Black ambient seems much more commonly accepted among bm fans than ds, not exactly sure why. Maybe because many ds artists now are further away from the black metal connection? Not sure. That is a very good point and possibly defining aspect of the DS genre - that it has more structure and melody than that of Dark or Black ambient. I think back in the day a lot of it was just lumped together in one all encompassing genre as no one really knew what direction things were headed.
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Post by beforedust on Feb 6, 2020 6:13:35 GMT -5
They're just summer children complaining about the cold.
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