• Music

    Anglachel – A Light that Shines so Bright

    April 4, 2024 - By 

    The first thought I saw with this lovely cover art from Greek composer Anglachel was, “good boi!”  It’s a heartbreakingly charming bit of cover art, but the main story is the music.  It’s dungeon synth, but perhaps a little meatier than what I am used to hearing.  The production value is quite nice.  The story about the release is recorded below: “The purpose of this EP is to provide assistance in organizations helping stray animals in Greece. For that reason ALL earnings will be donated to such organizations. The donation will take place on the 8th of May, so contributions…

  • Music

    Hiemis – Malleus Maleficarum

    February 10, 2024 - By 

    Hiemis are a project out of Spain, not exactly a mecca (yet) for dark ambient bands or dungeon synth, but this album is wonderfully bleak and enveloping.  It has the feel of a lo-fi Spanish or Italian horror soundtrack, but with a lot of warmth to it.  Eerie, of course, but accessible.

  • Music

    Necrocock – Jan Ži​ž​ka z Trocnova (Original Soundtrack)

    May 10, 2023 - By 

    Jan Ži​ž​ka z Trocnova is a twelve-part series covering the life of Czech hero Jan Ži​žka, whose role in his nation’s history is indisputable despite fighting for Protestant heretics.  Though I have never managed to watch the series, I did get a chance to enjoy the soundtrack scored by Tom Necrocock.  It’s a pretty solid soundtrack which, surprisingly, may appeal to fans of dungeon synth music.  There’s an appropriately medieval quality to the music despite it being generated from what I gather are synthesizers.  Engaging work.

  • Music

    noemienours – The Dry Path

    July 18, 2022 - By 

    It’s hard for me to make out the influences of this album, but I can say with certainty that listening to this rather weird album was a pleasure.  From noemienours’ Bandcamp site: ““The Dry Path”, noemienours’ 5th LP, developed around a Gobi Bear narrative of barren edge conditions as an access point to supra-natural realities, is definitely a turning point in the noemienours discography, notably because of its introduction of harpsichord in the noemienours instrumentarium, but also because of its recourse to a widened approach of its lo-fi musical approach, by creating a new musical form somewhere between Swedish post-black…

  • Music

    Digre – The Way of a Pilgrim

    April 24, 2022 - By 

    Minimal synths, plinking and plonking keyboard, a gothic air, a mention of the Orthodox work The Way Of The Pilgrim, and dedicated to the memory of St. Olav the Holy Martyr-King – that was enough to perk my interest in the band Digre. The notes on their Bandcamp site makes them sound like fascinating people doing an interesting project and will be shared on the holiest of days in the Orthodox calendar.  May your day be calm and peaceful.

  • Music

    now|here – The Wayfarer

    February 17, 2022 - By 

    This is one of those unsolicited posts that make blogging a pleasure.  now|here are a dark ambient/post-Industrial music project out of Italy whose work reminds me, in a very positive way, of acts which used to appear on Sweden’s Cold Meat Industry imprint.  The sounds here are cleaner, doomier, and loaded with a synthetic classical underpinning I like.  Perhaps I can say that this is a better-produced dungeon synth.  Enjoyable.

  • Music

    Štefanec feat. Legrand – Eternity

    May 3, 2021 - By 

    Perhaps a new genre of music has commenced with this release – that of monastery synth, rather than dungeon synth.  Though there is little information available on either Štefanec or Legrand, Kalamine Records provides some notes via their Bandcamp site here: Štefanec and Legrand (Croatia) started their collaboration back in 2017. After two years, they are releasing their first joint album Hope, for the record label HDR Limit. In 2020, the album Pjesme iz bunkera was released for Croatian label Slušaj najglasnije publishing house. May 1st their third joint album Eternity is released on Kalamine records.