I see Folk as the original DIY. There’s some importance to the passing of great melodies down through time but to me the more significant stuff is what sits around the tunes. The way you didn’t need hierarchical institutions, large ensembles or complex theory to make folk music hundreds of years ago still stands today. Dungeon Synth fits for each of these points, so the melding of DS and Folk within the setting, artists booked and DIY spirit of Appalachian Dungeon Fest is a beautiful crossover moment.
Sam (Flickers From The Fen)
One of the earliest types of music I remember being drawn to as a kid was Native American flute music and Celtic music. I also grew up around old-time, bluegrass, and old gospel music in the area where I live. With Foglord, folk music has always had a strong influence on me, especially through the more earth-based spiritual themes that I incorporate into it. On my most recent album, that influence is more prevalent than ever, with the incorporation of the banjo and various other folk instruments. I’m very drawn to folk instruments and sounds from all around the world. There is a meditative and hypnotic quality found in a lot of folk music, and it has a very natural feeling to it. There is also a communal quality about folk music that brings people together, often in circles. There is a spectrum of storytelling found within it, from simple to complex, yet remaining grounded in a way that resonates with people. It carries the echoes of past times. I also find the shared connections between folk music from different cultures very interesting, whether that may be through rhythmic patterns or instruments that share common ancestors. Early Appalachian music, for example, is diverse in that it blends African, European, and Native American influences.
Darian (Foglord)
Growing up in the south I was surrounded by the regional folk music, bluegrass. My mom always listened to it when I was a kid in the car or I’d hear it around when we would take short vacations in the Appalachian mountains. If I’m being honest, when I was a kid I had an aversion to the sound. I guess because I wanted to discover my own musical interests and find my own way. As the years passed, the seed that early exposure must have grew into a tree, because now when I hear it, it reminds me of a place and time and I love it. It feels so connected to the earth and people. I play mandolin now a lot with Hole Dweller and it has a direct connection to that. Outside of my regional folk, I love all kinds of folk music now: Celtic, Nordic, Chinese, African, the list goes on.
Tim (Hole Dweller)
What folk music means to me is preservation of identity. I thought that I didn’t grow up listening to folk–I mostly grew up in Germany–but in my adult explorations I learned that folk music isn’t just banjos and fiddles as I’d shallowly assumed. My wife’s family is deeply Appalachian, and I’ve learned so much about the way music functions as a cultural inheritance, a zeitgeist…evolving, but all the while preserving so many histories, values, heroes, villains, truths…all in this way that is essentially punk rock, which is to say community-centric and inherently anti-fascist. Actually it’s more accurate to say punk owes something to folk! Anyway, I’ve learned that “folk music” isn’t necessarily something I discovered but was always there, wherever I was. In Germany there’s another “folk music,” and same as anywhere else, particularly Appalachia, folk music for any community/culture/heritage carries with it the same essential boons: ancient passages, cautionary fables, hero narratives, fairy tales…spake ancestral winds that preserve and instill all that our elders bled to give to us. We share them, sing them together, play them out loud in order to prevail together, prevail out loud.
Tony (Fantasy Audio Magazine)
I think of people when I think of the word folk,
People who share a similar cultural experience sharing a moment to make music.
So to answer your question
To me folk means unity through communityMason (Jester Moon)
Hill Folk
I took off a few days after Appalachian Dungeon Fest (ADF) to catch the touring dungeon synth show as it stopped in DC. I did the same thing last year when Flickers of the Fen, Amn, Orcus and Silencio Permanente spun out of the Texas Dungeon Siege. This year it was the “Down The Mountain Tour” with Flickers From The Fen and Apoxupon coming from…. well… down Pine Mountain in Eastern Kentucky. A local dungeon synth show after a dungeon synth festival is now becoming an odd but welcomed coda to a weekend which felt like more of a dream than reality. At one point during ADF, Sam (Flickers From The Fen) was to play an acoustic folk song with Foglord and Spife. We were behind the stage looking for his mask as he either forgot it or it was engulfed by the pitch black night or everyone was stoned so there was no order to anything. I took my bandana I had been carrying around all day and tied it around his face as an improvised face covering. He looked like a train robber from a cartoon and went out and played his song in almost zero light under the Kentucky night. Even writing this feels like I made it up. I only had my headlamp to give light since the stage was perhaps the worst lighting I have ever seen rivaling the spare bulbs in punk basements. Outside of looking for a nice picture that could go at the top of this article, capturing this moment felt important since it felt so strange like documenting a tall tale. The three looked like they stepped out of a photograph to play for the crowd. For a style of music which started as solitary dark ambient before becoming an internet revival microgenre, dungeon synth in 2026 has certainly become social, active, and eternally adventuresome.
Wiley’s Last Resort is a private / primitive camping ground founded by Appalachian poet Jim Webb on the second highest mountain in Kentucky. Up until his death, Webb was an organizer of local Appalachian arts and served as one of the most influential people in the local rural counterculture. One of Webb’s most famous poems, “Get In, Jesus,” mixes social politics, spirituality, and absurdist humor in lackadaisical stanzas which are fitting to its rustic aesthetic. Finding information on Jim Web, Wiley’s Last Resort, and the area surrounding was difficult as most Appalachian history is obfuscated from the mainstream. The story of Wiley’s Last Resort is fascinating and much like the history of Appalachia is in an enteral struggle with how much it is known (or wants to be known) by the outside world. There is some sort of cosmic comedy with a niche form of music spent a weekend mingling with a niche mountain culture both which live on the frontier of greater understanding by the world. Some of the attendees I talked to this weekend didn’t know what dungeon synth was and only got advertisements of a cheap festival within driving distance to major urban areas. Others were intrigued by the general feeling of weirdness and an invitation to do whatever they wanted for a weekend. ADF seemed to appeal to not only people who knew listened to dungeon synth but also anyone who was intrigued by the prospect of adventure as long as they could climb a mountain.
When I arrived on Friday with others we all were met with the realization that unless we had an all wheel drive the last leg of the journey was to be carried out on foot up a rocky incline. My gear was light and I also got rides from some of the musicians who were also trying to go up the mountain. There was a moment when Dan (Seregost) and I got stuck in a ditch on the side of this road and had five people push the vehicle out. This sort of adventure is usually more than what I am used to when going to dungeon synth and I do not want to think about the possibility of being stranded on a Kentucky mountaintop. Once we made that climb however there was a sense of freedom which came with it leading to the realization that you could do whatever you wanted as long as you convinced yourself you didn’t need to leave anytime soon. This summit seemed to be the reward for not only making it up the mountain physically but putting oneself out there to do something unique which might or might not involve the elements like threatening thunderstorms, blistering sun, and a perimeter of very tall grass. Whether or not you wanted to drink all day, hang out in a field by yourself, or set up a medieval tent deep within in the woods like a destination of some sidequest, the weekend of ADF was a tabula rasa only to be filled in with whatever crazy bullshit you could conjure. One of the caretakers of the grounds, who was wandering around shirtless and without any shoes, told me he was going to put out a phone during the weekend. This phone turned out to be a very non functional yet aesthetically persevered public pay phone from the 1980s-2000s. There was no reasons to put it up other than to remind people that this weekend was unhitched from time and space.
This weekend came about by the work of two individuals but really the collective work of many. I met Mason from Jester Moon during the Florida Dungeon Fest when he was playing as Ogden. He seemed to be the person who could be considered the “lead” organizer. I use quotes becasue I have no idea of the hierarchical structure of the weekend nor if it really mattered. I noticed Tony from Fantasy Audio Magazine promoting and being involved in the lead up to the weekend. Upon arriving I saw Tony painting the “official” backdrop with a bucket of white paint on a forest green tarp. There was a joke that this festival was the janky southern cousin to dungeon synth shows and the scrawling letters of “Appalachian Dungeon Fest” flanked by crude axe drawings (they were great) felt like the most fitting visual aide. While these two could be considered the leads of the festival, they were surrounded by a team which ran “the door,” first aide, and transportation to bands who had to ferry gear up and down the treacherous entrance. Keeping the attendees safe the entire weekend was a pack of three dogs who patrolled the perimeter barking at black bears and other wildlife which were drawn to the clearing. I was told if you asked the dogs to go on a walk, they would guide you on an hour long walk to see Mars Rock, an outcrop which resembles the an alien planet. I don’t know if this is true or not but I love the fact that it is a possibility I am just going to believe it to be fact.
Dungeon synth festivals have been a recent curiosity. Though began a few years before the pandemic, live dungeon synth festivals began in earnest during the waning years of Covid restrictions. ADF joined the legion of other festivals like GLDS, TXDS, NEDS, FDF, DSW and the various European festivals which probably see the musicians play in actual castles. The United States perhaps has the most amount of live dungeon synth but also the fewest castles and actual dungeons to complete the aesthetics fitting to a fantasy ambient genre. These US festivals are also on the same financial level as punk shows so the result feels like a counterculture dressed in plastic capes. It is easy to blur your eyes pretend that you are in a fantasy world and lean into escapism with this genre. Music is entirely what one makes of it and its meaning and I assume dungeon synth is that for many. For me the low rent anachronisms which exist in dungeon synth such as fantasy music being played from laptops or someone in bright ass green sneakers playing from a stage whichg looks like it is about to collapse is apart of the charm and odd appeal. ADF seemed like the crystallization of this as a weekend you could be who you wanted to be without pretense or the confines of time and space.
The opening quotes in this article were from some of the headliners and organizers and I asked each one to give me their thoughts on the idea of “folk music.” Flickers From the Fen, Hole Dweller, and Forglord all have a shared relation in folk music whether by instruments employed on records or the atmospheres utilized. Folk music usually conjures images of acoustic music learned through oral tradition and played by singer songwriters showcasing themes of every day life, struggle, and superstitions. ADF was not a folk festival nor do I think it was even a dungeon synth festival. This weekend I saw folk as a more general concept with a collective who make art for a community outside of the mainstream. For as many acoustic instruments which seems to populate the area (even constituting a real life jug band), there was just as modern and vintage electronics which spanned decades. Folk music, at least for this weekend, was more a general body of values and institutions which were built together and celebrated as a whole. Individually all of these artists would be the outliers on a show bill but this weekend became a collective. The people who attended, the vendors who sold underground music, and the caretakers who put out pay phones for the vibes could be thought of the collective who participated in the best way they knew how. I don’t think whatever was made this weekend has a name yet nor if it even needs one rather the desire to do something outside of the norm seemed to be the guiding spirit.
Jim Webb’s poems were something I kept up while writing these and while I do not fully understand the context of a hill folk hitchhiker being mistaken for Jesus, the minimalism and absurdity of the poem was something of a focus. Webb’s poems were a connection among the people of the area and even to outsiders his work had a crazy mountain spirit which seems adversarial to commodification. There is a naive approach when it comes to words and phrases and humor much like the same minimalism and naive approach to art that dungeon synth has taken up where academic prerequisites are overlooked for creativity and gumption. Dungeon synth as folk art seems to share these values as an evolution of music which is attractive to outsiders and visionaries who seems to thrive in places where regulations and rules are at closest to zero. Wiley’s Last Resort and its history seemed like perfect place for this type of music. Not becasue the place resembled anything from fantasy or euro medieval lore rather much like its music was something entirely propagated by the community and driven forward by the people who care.
This weekend certainly didn’t sound like folk music but it most certainly was music made from folk.
KAP 2026
Friday
Black Agatha is a minimal synth / darkwave act from Mason of Jester Moon Productions also one of the organizers from the fest. Black Agatha was perhaps the most unorthodox way to start an Appalachian dungeon synth festival which always feels like the perfect place to start. The urbane nature of the spoken words drenched in reverb and and the cold nature of the drum machine spoke less to the majesty of nature and more the spirit of entrepreneurship that this genre supports. Anyone can do anything they want as long as they got on stage and pressed play as long as they remembered to take off their shoes.
Sunken Basilica, much like its name sake, is an evocative journey into parts unknown. This was the live debut for this Tennessee artist who has one release of experimental dungeon synth. It is important to note this one release perhaps does not encompass the work of an artist as the performance was a angular journey into guitar based experiments. I honestly did not know what to expect when approaching the performance nor do I know what to think after other than it seemed apart of the artists worldview on how to make music.
Faydark is the dark dungeon personality of the same artist who is Vale Minstrel. While Vale Minstrel crafts castles in clouds, Faydark’s love for old school fantasy RPGs can not be more understated. Menzoberranzan, named after the fictional Underdark city in Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms, is the newest album and also newest material played by the artist. As the night finally rolled in during the weekend, Faydark’s sound was perhaps the most familiar for those who were acquainted with the sound of dungeon synth. This was entirety escapist music which started on the mountains of Kentucky but ended up somewhere below ground in the City of Spiders.
Saturday
Carrion Cloak is the work of Gorgons Alter from Kentucky and Diem Exuro from West Virginia. If I could underline this genre’s progressive and experimental spirit it would be perhaps to the sound of “metallic synth doom.” That is not really an established genre rather an avatar which is conjured by these two who use a table of hardware like ritual tools to evoke primal spirits. Diem Exuro also runs Dungeon Squid Productions a prolific label dedicated to the intersection of metal, DS, and complete and utter chaos. Together this grouping seems to be an in real life collaboration of warped minds which results in a warped sound that bends space and time.
The D in DS stands for drip. Mountain Dew was known to me becasue I kept laughing at the flyer when seeing the name since it looked like the soda was going to be making their DS debut. Mountain Dew is the work of Lord Citrus (Roach) who also lent their talents to Vorpal Sword and Moonknight. Mountain Dew, despite its silly name and potential matching shoes during the show, is yet another avenue for its creator to make art which is oftentimes experimental and dark. Lord Citrus, the newest release is the current direction of the project though an earlier and nosier version of the soda named creation was released last year thus continuing to add multiple shades of sugary yellow to this project.
This is the second time seeing Del S. Pleaux with the first at the Texas Dungeon Siege. At both performances (as well as decrypting their Bandcamp page with links to sheet music) I have concluded I have no idea what is going on anymore. Del S. Pleaux’s aesthetic is a puzzle box with angular synth music which feels more like a calm fever dream than anything else. With a combination of acoustic instruments and laptop interface, Del S. Pleaux perhaps embodies the spirit of kitchen sink synth as I think they would grab anything and add it to their merry soundscapes. This artist was also seen around the festival grounds playing instruments and eating food out of cans as I have concluded they are a character out of a storybook rather than a real human.
Mons is Tony from Fantasy Audio Magazine — partially. Similar to the Texas performance, Mons has become an impromptu two piece with Spife playing a digital hand percussion. Mons is sort of more of an idea that dons the costume of performance than actual project with concrete information. All of the performances I have seen are improvised and they strive to use music as a place to reach a state of consciousness which are caught between drone, DS, vaporwave, and unfettered experimental music. I am sure Mons will be something different the next time I see the project.
At one point during Haudh’s set I remarked that the music was the closest I have heard to overland JRPG music and made the entire waning heat feel like a town where I was stocking up on potions. Haudh was perhaps one of the more traditional sounding acts of the weekend as well a welcome soundtrack during the waning heat of Saturday. Backed by only two synths, Haudh became the spokesperson for fantasy ambient escapism with a set that felt like a portal into the best video game you never played since it doesn’t exist but if it did it would be your favorite.
I could write a book about Dan (Seregost) since I find myself hanging out quartering with him whenever we are at festivals. Seregost is a orchestral dark fantasy act which combines visuals and scripted posturing culminating to covers of “Aces High.” Dan, the creator of Seregost, spent the afternoon looking for a steak to grill and spent a considerable amount of time talking very seriously about professional wrestling story lines in the deepest of southern accents all while wearing an American flag cowboy hat. I have never met anyone which two personalities that seem to rival each other as well as someone who throws himself into a character for performance. I’m glad we didn’t get stranded on top of that mountain but if we did I know that I would choose Seregost as traveling companion.
Vale Minstrel was an act I followed around the pandemic with four releases in 2020 and 20201. Red Wyvern Tower was that last of these and perhaps one of my most played from the catelog. Since then this artist has done a recent split with Acheulean Forests as well as start a completely different project with Faydark. Vale Minstrel and Faydark are usually seen together on bills giving both sides of a fantasy experience. While Faydark explores the dungeon delving past of the genre, Vale Minstrel has always leaned on a similar traditional sound just with a more cinematic and heroic scope. While the performance demanded a more dramatic light show, a small reading map perched on the keyboard seems to be a quiet arcane light to illuminate magic.
Hole Dweller’s history as salt of the earth dungeon synth to headlining act has been entertaining to watch. If you were to tell me that one of the more famous dungeon synth artists is someone who doesn’t even play a keyboard on stage I would have asked you why we were having this conversation but glad I could talk to someone in person about dungeon synth. Hole Dweller has been touring around the US for the past year and is about to embark on a European string of dates. Though this whole series of events may seem baffling, the bittersweet and nostalgic music from the artist feels like the perfect soundtrack to a comfy variety of dungeon synth making its way around the world.
Sunday
Bubble Wizard is another project by Tony from Fantasy Audio Magazine and was positioned at the perfect time in the fest which was 11am on Sunday. Bubble Wizard has always been the vehicle for this creator to not only make music but also write RPGS from. Throughout the fest I heard people talking about Bubble Wizard’s set in the context of “I didn’t know what was happening but it was magical to wake up to.” Perhaps this artist will finally start the paradigm of “early synth shows to wake up to” as a counter to to the night concerts that go past my bedtime.
Joyous Winds is the second act from Mason — one of the ADF organizers. The entire theme of Joyous Winds was kite based. While this music could easily be labeled “kite synth,” if there were more than 5 people doing the same thing, Joyous Winds exists around the support of whimsy. The creator stood by his keyboard and proclaimed among the crowd like a preacher at the pulpit about the benefits of flying kites and going on adventures while the wind whipped the decorative kites. Joyous Winds was filled with both a sense of sentimental wonder for childhood activities but also a celebration of inclement moments which seem to be apart of the experience.
Bad Milk Dirty Peaches is a dark ambient (?) project from Kentucky. this group was among the handful of acts which were a complete mystery to me and by looking at their Bandcamp, there are links to a Blogspot page which is even more inciting. The music of Bad Milk Dirty Peaches actually started out as a lofi hip hop beat act with heavy dungeon synth atmosphere before moving into a more general dark ambient soundscape. Today Bad Milk Dirty Peaches actually plays some of the more traditional dark dungeon style music just with a name that seems like it is apart of no genre I have heard of before.
I made a joke with Thrones that he walks around like he just strolled out of a comic book. This tall Texan radiated aura dressed in leathers and seemed unaffected by the high heat of Kentucky. the picture at the top was him tucked inside tall foliage playing banjo by himself. I assume he just lives like a real life punk bard. Thronos also had one of the more vintage synth setups of the weekend causing other artists to glance over the a table of relics. Similar to the hardware on the table, the music of Thronos is both heavy and dark fantasy synth but also shades of synthwave leading to an experience of pulling up a motorcycle to the castle gates.
Gloamwalker uses the tags “cinematic ambience” as one of the many descriptors for the Bandcamp page. In fact, the most recent release Lacuna is a 21 track release with each of the songs presenting short vignettes of atmosphere in a place. The world of Gloamwalker seems to be drawn from place called The Liminal Lands with the performance and releases dedicated to a place which out from a different time and space.
I have seen Spife at many events over the past few years and they are usually accompanied by a cadre of musicians, technicians, family, and supporters all who seem to share multiple roles. If there was any real life bard rolling to events in a giant wooden wagon with puppets in store in the back it would be Spife. I would also like to underline how each performance by this artist is unknown and how each time seems like an evolution into dungeon synth, black metal, and the grey lands of electronic experiments which lie between.
I have talked much about Apoxupon both with the release of How the Garden Grows as well as the entire institution of Texas Dungeon Synth. At this point in their existence, Apoxupon is not only organizing the Down The Mountain tour with Flickers From The Fen but also providing live percussion for Flickers Set. From Spife to Floglord it was difficult to tell where one set began and ended with many of the musicians coming onto to do special guest spots. Apoxupon’s set started right as violent thunderstorms rolled over the mountain. I know I will never get this type of experience but a new dungeon synth core memory will be during the set when people took shelter on stage during the set and the one of the mountain dogs also came up and for a few seconds it was a surreal party where there was no divide between artist & audience or fan & creator and everything was just a family for a few songs.
Since I have talked about Flickers From the Fen many times I would like to take this moment to formally write down how I laugh at every one of his performances since my camera does very well in low light when figures are still and starts to do very poorly when people move in low light. I would like to mention that the main stage was perhaps the worst lighting I have ever shot in and the only sources of light were two spotlights and Christmas lights I don’t know how were still working. Sam’s picture of him jumping on stage looks more like I am capturing a local cryptid which only comes out at night to play fiddle.
In a recent digest I talked about this newest record. Darien actually sent it to me a few weeks before the fest but I didn’t listen to it until after while writing this article. To be honest I was sort of waiting to be surprised by the music as he mentioned that it was a combination of Appalachian drone and dungeons synth. I asked Darien if this area was similar to his local area of SW Virginia. He said it was so I can assume this was the prefect time and place to experience this type of music. Foglord’s set up was an array of old time instruments like a stompbox as well as modern devices like a laptop with an open DAW for background ambience. This performance perhaps was balanced perfectly between the old world and new and wielded by a person who perhaps understands and can speak the languages of both. Foglord has always been an artist who has seen this genre grow as his history goes back to the earliest days of the DS revival in 2013. Now over a decade later this music is evolving into something that could be reductive called “dungeon folk” but it is much more than that. This type of music is made from an understanding of both worlds played by an artist who look like they belong to everywhere much like a traveler who adopts to the customs and traditions of wherever they go.
I saw posts from Darien as he traveled back from Pine Mountain stopping at Cumberland Gap to play a rendition of Cumberland Gap on banjo. This entire trip seemed to be a folk pilgrimage for the artist who was visiting sites of folk songs that have been passed down through generations. The aforementioned folk song played with Flickers and Spife was “Pretty Saro” an 18th century English folk ballad which became an Appalachian staple in the early 20th century. The fact that this English / American folk tune was played by a cadre of English / American folk(ish) musicians in the dead of night was not only fitting but absurdly under recognized in its significance. Perhaps it is apart of the genre as wisdom and knowledge are discovered by the people who care and also read to the end of long article.
Various Photos
Flickers From The Fen, Apoxuopon, Assorted Potions, Fenmoss @ Pie Shop DC
Below are some photos from the Down the Mountain tour when it came through DC. Assorted Potions was traveling with the tour from Texas and local act Fenmoss made their live debut. I was happy for the chance to see dungeon synth in air conditioning though the night was very warm compared to the cool Kentucky night. I got to drink something besides my water / Gatorade cocktail and not check for ticks after the show. I saw a few other people who traveled from the mountain to DC including including Relics of the Eternal City from Richmond. We chatted about the previous weekend and for a moment I felt a connection between the hill folk who decided to follow around this tour. If nothing else I finally got my picture of Sam (Flickers From The Fen) who made his way through the venue like a pied piper leading people on a merry chase.
See you all next year.
