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Post by toodarkpark on Sept 3, 2018 15:28:03 GMT -5
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Post by Summerless on Sept 3, 2018 15:35:02 GMT -5
Yikes.
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Post by Xcthol on Sept 3, 2018 17:43:56 GMT -5
Nice to see some Jim Kirkwood appreciation, however a lot of those comments are pretty yikes
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Thoughts?
Sept 3, 2018 23:33:17 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by ranseur on Sept 3, 2018 23:33:17 GMT -5
Haha, oh jesus. The keyboard warrior cheese doodle eaters strike again. But if you can't stand the heat get the fuck out of the fire. I don't think many of us really care about being accepted by the black metal scene in general anyway.
Oh and the answer is Mortiis.
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Post by guestunknown on Sept 4, 2018 4:31:01 GMT -5
Mortiis, Dark Dungeon Music, Fata Morgana .... All that is prevalent today was there then. Jim Kirkwood is great, but I think more in the "traditional" line of modern electronic music. I noticed 70's Germany mentioned in the link of the OP so I would to point out this link to Nazgul www.discogs.com/artist/1782771-The-Nazg%C3%BBlfor those who do not know them they have been somewhat discussed since "discovered." It has been a while since I listened to their album (which is said to have been recorded in 1975).
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Post by thekeeper on Sept 4, 2018 16:43:12 GMT -5
Wow, quite a bad thread. Seems most people on there listen to 4 DS artists at the most and are generally unfamiliar with DS. Pretty big posturing/trve-signal thread ("I hated DS even before it was kool and I hate it more now"), but it's funny to read. I agree with ranseur , Mortiis was the first DS artist without a doubt. Kirkwood made Berlin School electronica with a fantasy theme, but that doesn't make it DS. People confuse a lot of that stuff and things like neoclassical darkwave as DS when they're just influences on early DS, not DS artists themselves. It's weird when people say DS isn't a genre when its existed with a distinct sound and set of influences since 1993, separate from dark ambient and most 'ambient music' generally, especially in the pure ambient sense like Global Communication stuff. How people wouldn't consider it a genre is beyond me, even if it did sprout from black metal and has stayed fairly small.
( cosmicweaponofthule , not sure if you're still around, but NSDS has been around for quite some time and is still a thing (Blutkrieg, Wojnar, Wolfhord, Arno Breker, etc). The first person to tag their music 'NSDS' outright actually did so earlier last year, though they removed the tag since then. NSDS is definitely a thing, past and present, we were just saying your project itself did not sound DS, more generally dark ambient, but this would be better talked about in your Chambers thread.)
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Thoughts?
Sept 4, 2018 17:40:38 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by ranseur on Sept 4, 2018 17:40:38 GMT -5
Yeah see I'm not anti kirkwood or anything but I see him more as an anomaly than a precursor. He clear didn't influence the first wave of ds, same with danzig's record. But there's some strong material there.
But I'm looking at this whole thing again, I'm not sure I grasp what the issue is. Dungeon synth is clearly a version of the term dark dungeon music. There's no revisionism happening at all. Far as I can tell the only reason andrew w coined the term is because mortiis' term didn't catch on, which caused unnecessary confusion with dark ambient, mostly by people who didn't know jack shit about dark ambient in the first place. It's not that complicated.
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Post by poppet108 on Sept 5, 2018 10:07:24 GMT -5
NWN! is pretty sketch. It's the 4chan of the black metal scene. However, I'd say the first DS was probably mayhem's short instrumental Weird Manheim. Definitely captures the strange aesthetic DS is trying to carry.
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Thoughts?
Sept 5, 2018 15:40:48 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by ranseur on Sept 5, 2018 15:40:48 GMT -5
NWN! is pretty sketch. It's the 4chan of the black metal scene. However, I'd say the first DS was probably mayhem's short instrumental Weird Manheim. Definitely captures the strange aesthetic DS is trying to carry. Yeah man, if this doesn't prove the point than we're just dealing with assholes.
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Post by andrewwerdna on Sept 5, 2018 23:22:04 GMT -5
I think this post from the mighty Eugene is an important discovery: which bands in this style started using keyboards first? Eugene, do you know? I'm not sure chronologically who was the first to use this? It's hard to say who was the first but Mortuary Drape had a long organ-ish intro on their 1987 demo "Necromancy" Another interesting example is an intro by Swedish death metal band Sorcery. It's from their 1989 demo "Unholy Crusade" and it sounds really close to DS that we all know and love. [/quote]
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Post by thekeeper on Sept 7, 2018 22:37:56 GMT -5
I really like this Mortuary Drape info. There's something about older recordings (besides the fidelity and hiss) that just sounds old. I'm not sure what it is, but you can just tell when DS is pre '00s. Perhaps there was a idea with composing in this style that wasn't informed by the amount of DS we're aware of now, like taking in less direct DS influence which we can't really avoid now without willful ignorance? Not to denigrate newer DS of course, but is there something that makes older DS distinct from 'nowadays DS'? I feel many in that NWN thread may say it's a difference of not trying to emulate DS as a concept (now that's its coined, people can attribute qualities to an archetype more easily), maybe less of a chance for 'participation releases' or something along those lines. There's certainly greater overall community support now, does lack of a community change the sound?
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erisianseer
Peasant
https://ephemerallandscapes.bandcamp.com/
Posts: 22
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Post by erisianseer on Sept 9, 2018 12:54:04 GMT -5
I honestly think of DS as an extension of new-age/ambient music. So I would say early examples can date back as far as the 70s with some of the darker berlin school stuff like early tangerine dream. As for dungeon synth as it's currently defined through the lens of black metal. I'd say burzum was the first. This song is on varg's first album from '92 which predates mortiis's first release by a year. www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6nAlbs2c4Y
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Post by thekeeper on Sept 10, 2018 12:00:49 GMT -5
Do you think it comes from the legitimate age of the tape after 25+ years of sitting around and then being digitized? I really like this Mortuary Drape info. There's something about older recordings (besides the fidelity and hiss) that just sounds old. I'm not sure what it is, but you can just tell when DS is pre '00s. Perhaps there was a idea with composing in this style that wasn't informed by the amount of DS we're aware of now, like taking in less direct DS influence which we can't really avoid now without willful ignorance? Not to denigrate newer DS of course, but is there something that makes older DS distinct from 'nowadays DS'? I feel many in that NWN thread may say it's a difference of not trying to emulate DS as a concept (now that's its coined, people can attribute qualities to an archetype more easily), maybe less of a chance for 'participation releases' or something along those lines. There's certainly greater overall community support now, does lack of a community change the sound? I think that might be part of the atmosphere on some stuff, but I feel there's difference in composition that contrasts newer composition. I'm not sure what this is exactly, but the most recent Mortiis interview on The Graveyard Shift confirmed a bit of what I had thought, that DS artists then didn't have as much other DS to influence their own music and that many were disconnected outside of their own scenes. There's so much more now that we can identify as DS motifs and commonalities in the writing and these gets subconsciously replicated as everyone feeds off of each other. Even stuff that intends to sound more classic now probably draws away from the commonalities in "non-traditional" DS ('traditional' reading as 'Mortiis and Depressive Silence worship'). Not saying either is better, it's just that we're now able to make a fair guess as to when a DS album was released without considering the fidelity as much.
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Post by thekeeper on Sept 13, 2018 10:34:14 GMT -5
I think that might be part of the atmosphere on some stuff, but I feel there's difference in composition that contrasts newer composition. I'm not sure what this is exactly, but the most recent Mortiis interview on The Graveyard Shift confirmed a bit of what I had thought, that DS artists then didn't have as much other DS to influence their own music and that many were disconnected outside of their own scenes. There's so much more now that we can identify as DS motifs and commonalities in the writing and these gets subconsciously replicated as everyone feeds off of each other. Even stuff that intends to sound more classic now probably draws away from the commonalities in "non-traditional" DS ('traditional' reading as 'Mortiis and Depressive Silence worship'). Not saying either is better, it's just that we're now able to make a fair guess as to when a DS album was released without considering the fidelity as much. I think you nailed it, listening to a lot of old school DS and the newer waves of DS your post kept swimming around in my head. Even trying to compose my own music I kept thinking about it. After reading your post, I find that the difference between DS from the 90s/early 2000s and the newer wave especially of the recent years is that there is less experimentation in Dungeon Synth of today, and more abiding by the "rules" - not saying either is better, like you said. Do you think the disconnection to the scene is a good thing for an artist? Well, I wouldn't say there's less experimentation in DS since the revival because there's a good amount that's fairly innovative and interesting (many members here on the forum I think are quite innovative and original), but I do think there are more artists or albums that sound the same as others due to a more music building on the genre's definition. Maybe this phenomenon arises when there's enough music to outline a kind of blueprint for what a genre is, something that was much less collected until the genre's coinage. I do think though that the 'blueprint sound' is somewhat of a weird phenomenon since this 'traditional' sound generally refers to a smaller subset of artists from the 90s, mainly characterized by Mortiis' Anden and Depressive Silence's catalog, even though 90s DS was fairly eclectic and often weird. Since these albums have come to be pillars of the genre, I suppose it's fair in some regard to say that these constitute what is now 'traditional' if not only for their current and major influence.
Depends on what you'd consider 'good for an artist'. There are more reclusive artists that are traditional and there are more socially visible artists that are experimental. I'm inclined to say that disconnection results in less ingroup genre mimicry, but maybe that potential is over with.
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