I feel charity is important and through my time spent with this genre of music have seen charity drives around albums which leads me to believe the majority of the community being wholesome and altruistic. Dont Cry Over My Ashes is a compilation featuring well known artists such as Erang, Umbria, Ithildin, and Aura Merlin. Also included is a large portion of some of the more active artists on the Melkor’s Discord which was the place this was organized. Aside from having a spectrum of wonderful artists, proceeds for the compilation go to Casa Della Donna, “a support and hospitality center for survivors of gender based violence located in Pisa, Italy.” Everyone involved in the production of this compilation are wonderful human beings and all of them also play music very well.
This album was shared on the dungeon synth Reddit with the title of “Inspired by Keys to Oneiria and adjacent projects, as well as late ’70s Tangerine Dream.” I cant think of a better marketing pitch for most people. It should also be noted that despite Secular being inspired by these artists, this project never feels like a facsimile. Secular’s unassuming combination of comfy synth, Berlin school, and raw ambient is something that fits into the world of dreamers. I enjoy visual art so I spent a time looking at the work of Arthur Hughes, the 19th century illustrator who drew the work used for the cover. The illustration is from The Princess and The Goblin (1872) which was one of the influences for J.R.R Tolkien and C.S Lewis. Again I cant think of a better marketing pitch for most people than proto fantasy illustration with dreamlike music for a marketing pitch.
It’s been a treat to watch Frostgard grow and become something utterly unique. This isn’t to say the Spanish artist dedicated to Tolkien lore was anything less in the past, rather the span between 2021’s Valaquenta I and today has shown a world of albums that continue to impress. This span of records was also a road to a premiere set at the Northeast Dungeon Siege in 2024. “Coranar” means “Sun Round” and is the name for an Elvish year. I know this because each Frostgard ends up with me on Tolkien Gateway looking at what each of the songs is referencing. Coranar is the first album for 2024 following a split for HDK Adventurers Magazine # 3 and Frostgard’s mastery over not only the melodies but the themes of Tolkien and how to present it in a unique light in a genre where fantasy is expected is something entirely magical.
I first encountered Giglareth when we worked on the fourth and fifth installment of Spotify DS playlists. Even then I knew this artist as someone with a command on detail and also visual design. What I was not expecting from the music was a potpourri of medieval ambient, dark dungeon music, dancey beats, and abstract electronics. Schatten über dem Nordland is a castle ruled over by a court of technomages. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by this as even working with this project with Spotyf playlists felt like it was a serious endeavor. It will be interesting to see what the future hold as Schatten über dem Nordland feels like the first steps of something great. I know there are covers already done and ready to go.
Fragmented Memories isn’t something that is immediate. The art for the cover looks like it was made by forest creatures and its music feels more fae like than anything. When I mention fae I don’t mean the prancing kind rather the enigmatic ones which live on mischief and confusion. Collecting Memories For The Future is the debut for a project which doesn’t seem constrained by the laws of the world. Much like its name, is a kaleidoscope of dark ambient melodies and recollections set adrift in some enchanted wood. It is not dark nor is it comforting rather a middle ground between the real and unreal.
Utred, at one point, was very popular among the DS community for the release of 2016’s Forest. I talk about this like it is a thing of the past but even today Forest has over 100K views on the Dungeon Synth Archives YouTube channel. It is not hard to see why as Utred’s epic medieval ambient is a very welcoming sown for people new to the genre. Gondolin Records has already released the first three Utred albums in the 2020 compilation Citadel ◆ Forest ◆ Sovereign. Today, they release Gothic ◊ Hotspurs ◊ Nip collecting material from 2019 and 2020. With songs ranging from 1 minute to 16 minutes, you honestly have no idea what you are in for other than to be surprised. I have talked may times about the importance of record labels and probably Gondolin for being a library of sorts archiving past and present works. Gothic ◊ Hotspurs ◊ Nip is a giant book in the stacks of this dungeon synth library probably with gilt pages.
Sylfvr is from France and honestly has a lot of recent work that could be enjoyed by many people. In April of this year, the artist released Memeoria, a blackgaze / DS record with lots of merits on its own. Soul Vapor is different and it is the most recent work written after what seemed to be a cultimating time of stress and heartache. This short demo was perhaps used as a way to process grief through the use of minimal synth and personal art for the cover. This something I enjoy abut this style of music and artists who use releases as as reactions to life events. There is something personal and authentic about music that was released in a short amount of time and without much post production. While not all music can be on this nature as production has its own merits, a release like this is a beacon in an otherwise dark time.
This is not only a recommendation for Ber Bein but also Weregnome for promoting artists that fall outside the the dungeon synth genre. In fact if we started to do research we might discover Weregnome is some sort of trickery god. I would have never heard Dreaming Bones if not for this label. “Ber Bein” means Bare Bones in Icelandic and listening to the album the name and music couldn’t be more different. Through staggering layering of choral chants and cinematic atmospheres. Dreaming Bones is a dream, nightmare, hypnotic state without time or place and could be the soundtrack to some purgatorial realm. Labels like Weregnome are always important as hey amplify artists that might not otherwise reach people unless those people were specifically looking for …ghost haunted medieval ambient.
Most of my research for these articles comes from the very scientific process of paging through new releases and clicking on things that look cool. I think I was first attracted to this release due to the cover .. or lack there of. There is a castle there but the difference between the background and the subject is so minimal it fits the haunting and tragic music contained within. Eilon is from Sweden and by all accounts I might be the first one to listen to this. I enjoy finding things like this since they feel like they just exist without anyone writing about it or calling attention. Eilon’s presence over music even through a minimal template is fascinating and should be a wonder for anyone who enjoys an traditional style of dungeon synth through extreme haze. Im glad I could call attention to this release but honestly would be wonderful even if i didn’t stumble over it.
If you remember the Dungeon Synth Spotify playlists, another contributor for those was an artist apart of the Kalle Wyrsch project. For the playlist, Kalle Wyrsch supplied some obscure German synth which was wonderful and unexpected. They also shared some music alongside an obscure German puppet show which was mindbending. Rundweg is the first album from this project and honestly reminds me the time where I would be floored by a raw bit synth album which burst beyond its technological coil to be something delightfully bizarre. Continuing the tradition of Ian Boddy and the Mirage label of absolute weirdoes comes an album of naive synth, field recordings, and a complete disregard of rules. Kalle Wyrsch resonated to a frequency far beyond mortal understanding.
I don’t know what food synth is but I think I fully support it. Unlike other _____ -synth styles, food synth feels like a big inside joke shared between probably the one person who is running all of this. This substyle though isn’t meant to dilute the genre pool with needless separations or even launder shitty NS music through guitar amps, rather food synth just exists to have a laugh by themselves. Monsieur Baguette is from France (maybe) but with tapes through a German label which specialized in deeply weird forms of music. This is the second one from Personal Uschi Records which seems like a playground where walking baguettes exists with a checkered table cloth for a Jacrd.