I’ve noticed a lot of people perceive dungeon synth releases as sounding similar but I think this is a real shame and is mostly a result of people only ever finding releases in the old school style of dungeon synth. These old school releases (whether old or new) tend to have a castle and a gloomy name and play in a vein very much inspired by Mortiis (although almost all of these seem to miss out the symphonic bombast of mortiis). There are certainly old school projects that do it well and are very much worth listening to, old sorcery comes to mind, but there is so much more that dungeon synth has to offer. I’m not talking about bizarre gimmick genres either, there are many projects that stay within an accessible synth vein but are loose the dark ambience. Artist such as Fogweaver and Hillsfar offer a talented and engaging take on the genre. They evoke a fantasy that is far more ethereal than the dark, mysterious nature of the old school sound. Another great example is Quest Master who take inspiration from fantasy video games, (it doesn’t sound electronic but stays within a fairly traditional synth style) notably they are one of the few dungeon synth artists who tour on a large scale. I would also point out winter synth as another more unique take on dungeon synth, it is almost completely atmospheric most of the time and can completely suck you in to its world. I also find winter synth generally isn’t as suited to being background music as it can often have an almost oppressive nature (at least the projects more focused on pure atmosphere than melody). I would also highly recommend the project Lacrimorphosis and their album “streets of lunar deads” the first track on that album “never ending night of falling stars” is absolutely gorgeous and is one of the most emotionally impactful pieces of music I have ever heard. All this is to say don’t get stuck in the traditional sounding projects that are preoccupied with the dark fantasy aesthetic, these are great but there is plenty of different angles to come at the genre from that don’t have to sound derivative or be part of an absurd microgenre.
I love that you brought up Secret Stairways. Matthew unfortunately died a while back, but his mom Kathy keeps the Secret Stairways legacy alive. All sales and interactions you have with Secret Stairways online are her. I got to meet Kathy when I was an organizer for a dungeon synth festival here in Indiana. Amazing person all around. If you’re into the more epic, high fantasy style of DS, you may like my project Moonkissed Spires!
If you're talking about the Great Lakes Dungeon Siege, I also met her there this year during that event. Unfortunately none of the vendors took debit or credit, so I wasn't able to purchase their tapes until afterwards online. It was a great mini festival, I can't wait for their next one next year.
Pretty ironic you're uploading this the day after I learned that my dad recorded some dungeon synth-esque music in the 1980's. I will 100% upload it if I can find it (it is most likely in a tub in my basement).
1:35 there is an offshoot of dsbm called depressive rock and it's just dsbm with less abrasive guitars and crying vocals because we circled back around to rock in an effort to make the most depressing music possible. some bands would be apati, hypothermia, and intig. You should do a video on it it's pretty interesting
I wish Trey Azagthoth of Morbid Angel had released some dungeon synth material. You can tell just by the Morbid Angel interludes that he could’ve made some cool shit.
The dungeon synth bandcamp scene is extremely eclectic and takes way more inspiration from projects like Fief than any old school records. Also, no Erang mention? Damn. He's the Mortiis of 2010s and 20s DS, to make an ambitious comparison.
It really is amazing how far Dungeon Synth has come. Black metal elitists HATED this stuff at the time. They would look-over the occasional dungeon synth song/intro/outro/etc on a black metal album, but Mortiis got HATE. I'm sure the old reviews of the albums are still on the internet, and the same goes for Burzum's prison albums - they were simply hated by almost everyone. I'm extremely glad those voices got properly ignored.
I stumbled into a dungeon synth show completely randomly last year. It was very entertaining and silly. My favorite artist of the evening called Wraith Knight was playing their final song and the power suddenly cuts out. "Uhhhh.....well i guess that spell was too powerful!"
Lunar Womb from Trollhorn (Henri Sorvali) and Fata Morgana from Mortiis are so underrated and belong to my favorites from the early ones together with the perfect Depressive Silence Demo II. Great video and thank you for the research, have to check some of these out!
Thanks for this. There are now two videos (long form ones at least) about dungeon synth on youtube😂 This genre has been relegated to obscure blogs for so long, its great to see it acknowledged in high quality content that will actually reach a decent sized audience. Great vid
The fact I thought about a video like this not existing in your channel just a few weeks ago, makes this a dream come true as I really like your approach on music history! I am one of those that dwelled in the BM scene for a long while and only found out about Dungeon Synth roughly 3 to 4 years ago, as a recognizable thing. I would like to shout out Hole Dweller as an artist, it has the traditional rawness of old school dungeon synth, the cosiness of Fief and it's much more ambient than a lot of the "newer" projects you see around, not to mention the LOTR thematic which makes it an even greater immersion experience. Great video, as always! Thanks for putting this out!
The story really begins with a Burzum's track from self-titeld, "Channelling The Power Of Souls Into A New God" - already out in 1992, not with Mortiis. Although Mortiis influenced the genre quite a lot, Varg was the first to merge dark ambient into the black metal setting. The only reason it tends to be 'ignored' by some (but not all) is because of Varg's infamy - nothing to do with music. Taking away credit from actual masterminds & revisionism has become pretty common unfortunately.
Another recent development is that it seems like tiktok discovered Blod Besvimelse, which I considered a pretty obscure project associated with Grausamkeit. Some of her songs have hundreds of thousands of hits on youtube.
Dont be upset wyatt being that you called keller synth brainrot i must inform you that mourice de jong the man behind gnaw there tounges also has his own keller synth project
My favorite bm band ever. Can't believe he's made all this amazing ambient work, all this amazing black metal work, AND all this amazing work combining both of the sounds. He also definitely has some of the best, if not THE BEST album artworks in all of black metal and ambient, no doubt. A great album by him to check out is "Kristall & Isa". I especially recommend listening to "Aether" and "Der Kristall ist Eis". A soothing ambient atmosphere with a perfect lead-in to the most primal, wintry and monolithic atmosphere I have ever heard. Paysage D'hiver, to me at least, is the only artist I have heard in any of these styles that just perfectly captures nature.
I have recently been going on a journey of self-discovery; I've been learning who I am and who I want to be. On this journey, I've found/fully accepted five things that I absolutely love: everything gothic, horror, goth music, black metal, and Dungeon synth. Oddly enough, black metal and dungeon synth came as like a duo package; they are inseparable and meant to be together. I'm all here for it. Thank you for this video; it was well put together and very informative!
Great video. Along with Pseudiom's dungeon synth history video, this is one of the most comprehensive videos on TH-cam, so thank you for taking the time to research the genre. My introduction to DS was much like yours, going far down the black metal rabbit hole and hitting early dungeon synth adjacent stuff with Wongraven, so I'm glad you gave that project a shout out. HAILS to Secret Stairways! ⚔️
Even though I haven't heard any dungeon synth albums, I've always been fascinated by the genre, and watching this video just makes me want to check out Depressive Silence even more.
Mortiis’ “Song of a Long Forgotten Ghost” is simply magical. Beautiful, repetitive melodies that put the listener under a hypnotic trance. Some would call it boring, but if you know a thing or two about musical composition, you will enjoy it.
Fuck yeah, been keen to see what the next video would be since the iceberg video. Always love me dungeon synth. Writing a dumb DnD campaign for some friends with some dungeon synth background.
Thats a fitting use. I liked to play RISK whilst listening to bombastic, patriotic "American Military Music" - that always set the backdrop nicely; esp when the jaunty and easily recognisable "Yankee Doodle" begins to pipe its way into your ear 😊
I have been listening to black metal since I was a teenager, and over the past decade youtube has recommended to me most of the the classic albums you discussed and then some over the years. God bless the algorithm. My favorite that I would highly recommend is Medieval Journeys by Gothmog.
I do want to add that, maybe because I am part of the scene, I hear a ton of diversity in sounds in dungeon synth. We have a little scene in the PNW, and no one sounds the same. Everyone puts a ton of work into their projects, like creating an entire lore for their project or theatrics on stage. It amazes me that for such a niche genre, there's so much that it offers.
Dung synth audience must consist solely of old nerds that were forced to endure the same hellish ambient, looping, reverb, echo, skeleton grotto OST in old games for HOURS on repeat back in the day. Not hating, I am proud to be one of those nerds! Reminds me of long & lonely nights fighting skellies
🙌🧙🙌 long time fan of 70s krautrock electronic german bands and dungeon synth great video it covers all you need to get into this type of music. Love watching videos like this
Love the vid man. I see you mentioned Thangorodrim which is one of my favorite DS projects. Turns out the artist behind it is the same one behind fief and sequestered keep.
My love for DS started with the album "The Lunar Lexicon" from Aindulmedir. And especially the title track from this album. For me it is a style of music I listen to when I want to escape reality for a moment. My favourite DS album of all time would be Fjelltronen. Love this video, thankyou for making it!🙌🏻
First time I fell in love with DS was way back in 2011 when I was listening to some black metal radio, now long gone, which looped songs and the last song on the list was Mortiis' Emperor of the Dimension Unknown. Absolutely loved it!
Another interesting early experiment that was actually made with gaming in mind was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - First Quest from all the way back in 1985. You can definitely feel the influence of Tangerine Dream in particular.
This might be a rare take But Dungeon Synth originated from Power Metal And a strong evidence of it can date back to the releases of "Stratovirus - Fright Night" & "Darkness" Intro before black metal completely claims the genre as there's in the 90s
There also might have been a ton of power metal bands that use Dungeon Synth after Stratovirus And another thing to take note that Fright Night was Released back in 1989
Dungeon Synth also did kinda spread in other Power Metal Bands so there's quite actually been a 2 ways split of how this genre spread throughout metal There are either Dungeon Synth fans that came from because Stratovirus And Dungeon Synth Fans that came from Mortiis I think Folk Metal fans are also into it but I rarely seen them put Dungeon Synth elements in there Album or Fanbase
If you want some extra 90s dungeon synth stuff , I highly recommend as honourable mentions to check out Gothmog- medieval journey ,and Lamentation- fullmoon over Faerhaaven
early fantasy video game soundtracks are undoubtedly a massive influence on dungeon synth’s sound (almost as if a lot of these musicians are massive nerds) also i always think about any number of instrumental intros/interludes in metal albums throughout the years influencing the desire to strip down the sound etc. and the resurgence id say is in some part due to the lord of the rings movie trilogy and its massive proliferation in nerd/internet culture
SUPER fuckin' odd point for me to make... But when you described Fief as a warm blanket inviting for comfort, etc.... I have a very good friend who became a junkie when his life got super fucked up after a para-trooping accident. The way you described Fief was exactly how he described doing heroin when his mental and physical health were at an all time low. the EXACT thing. "warm blanket," etc. he's been clean and sober for probably well over 15 years. Wife, kid, great job, all the bells and whistles. Very proud of him.
I saw mortiis open for mayhem back in 2022 they actually got bood quite a bit during their set as it wasn't the brashness of "normal black metal" but they told a kind of story like a journey and i personally really enjoyed it
I started listening to dungeon synth exactly because it reminded me of the old-school video games, but it wasnt Runescape or anything DnD related for me, it was Lionheart, Stronghold, Age of Empires, Sacred, Oblivion. Lockdown days led me to atmo-black metal, and dungeon synth was the result of youTube recommendations (them being useful - rare thing). Thus, I started experimenting with synths and free vst plugins (well, I just couldnt afford it, lockdown left me without my job as a stage tech guy). Gotta add that the "second wave" of dungeon synth was strongly pushed forward by the guy under the name Erang. Very prolific dungeon synth artist, who started in 2012, and releases music regularly to this day.
Mortiis's book "Secrets of my kingdom" is actually pretty decent if you're into that kinda stuff. Not sure if he reissued it but I got one of the first prints.
I agree so much about the burzum album sounding like runescape or the old elder scrolls I always thought that. Secret Stairways is so great! I own the repress of enchantment of the ring on record. Great album
The label Sweet 8 Bitterness out of Germany releases "dungeon chip" music, they even release stuff on floppy disc and Gameboy cartridges. Highly recommend.
I think you could argue Grausamkeit / B.S.o.D. and his many releases under different names could be considered as an early progenitor of dungeon synth as well. Plus I think Vindkaldr is a dungeon synth project that needs to be recognised as a stand-out in the genre along with fief.
I experimented with dungeon synth back in the early 2000's to about 2007. I was heavily influenced by Burzum's synth albums and the Mortiis Stargate album. Also like to mention Blackstorm's Black Circle Crusades album as a influence. I don't know if anyone is familiar with that album. I recorded a few tapes of about 50 songs but never got around to releasing any of it as i was very busy with my other bands. Its kinda funny the reason i ended my dungeon synth music was because of the name i was using. I found out there was already a band called Funeral Mist lol.
You ever see that show Dunngeon with Richard Dunn on Channel 5 Public Access? That really got this genre off the ground, most notably with one of the first appearances of Zwei Dunkel Jungen on the scene.
Tangerine Dream’s soundtrack to the film Legend is very protoDS. Another DS adjacent album that was released in 1992 and influenced all of Norwegians at the time is the sound collage based on The Black Death by When (Lars Pedersen from Holy Toy). The Polish (felt animated) Moomin series (1984 I believe) music is probably the earliest identical spirit that I have heard though.
Interesting that you mention the term dungeon synth wasn’t coined until 2011. I think Russ Smith (music journalist who wrote for Terrorizer mag in the early years and ran the Black Tears distro for 2 decades), deserves credit here. When writing about the early Mortiis releases and acts like Wongraven back in 1994/95, he referred to them as ‘dark dungeon ambient synth’. Even Mortiis referred to his music as ‘Dark Dungeon’ back then too. If anyone deserves the credit for naming the style, I would say Russ has a strong case.
31:46 ...and that was exactly the reason why I found my own project called "Woyte Lande". Background music can be nice, but i like to listen to music that has a bit more variety to offer. Especially classical/orchestral influenced DS does good work at that.
I remember those first Mortiis albums getting released in the 90's, and most reviewers just swept them on the same pile with Aghast, Raison d'etre and Blood Axis. Nobody seemed to really get it, back then. It just got placed under that very broad 'experimental' umbrella.
Ive been getting into dungeon synth for about a year now, and some of my favorites are Nocturnal Effigy, Erythrite Throne, and Eternal Fear Really interested into listening to those older albums mentioned
Hey man ive watched for a good 2 maybe 3 years an theres a band ive never heard you talk about. ManMan, there not metal and i rlly dont know how to describe their genre but the best way to put it is that every song sounds like a painting. Would love to hear your thoughts on them
If anyone is looking for a more innovative take on the genre of dungeon synth check out the Italian label Heimat Der Katastrophe , or HDK for short. Notable artists on this label are GNOLL, KOBOLD, Teeth of Glass and many more. Also check out Hobbit synth notable Hole Dweller. Really great video, glad to see more people talking about Dungeon synth, and Dark ambient music.
My first time hearing DS i remember the first old sorcery album coming out. I saw the cover thought thats gonna be a sick BM album and bought it. Then when i put it on i was like wtf is this turned it off and was a bit pissed off i guess the only reason I didn't sell it was because it was number 1/300 i think. Now about 8 months ago i stumbled across depressive silence album morning, and did i ever fall in love with it. I eventually went back to the OS album and loved it. Needless to say im now quite obsessed with the genre and even attended a DS festival (great lakes dungeon siege) just last month. And that was a fantastic experience. Some of my favorites are Fief Tale's under the oak Depressive silence Dungeon troll Utred Old sorcery Nest To name a few
I’ve noticed a lot of people perceive dungeon synth releases as sounding similar but I think this is a real shame and is mostly a result of people only ever finding releases in the old school style of dungeon synth. These old school releases (whether old or new) tend to have a castle and a gloomy name and play in a vein very much inspired by Mortiis (although almost all of these seem to miss out the symphonic bombast of mortiis). There are certainly old school projects that do it well and are very much worth listening to, old sorcery comes to mind, but there is so much more that dungeon synth has to offer. I’m not talking about bizarre gimmick genres either, there are many projects that stay within an accessible synth vein but are loose the dark ambience. Artist such as Fogweaver and Hillsfar offer a talented and engaging take on the genre. They evoke a fantasy that is far more ethereal than the dark, mysterious nature of the old school sound. Another great example is Quest Master who take inspiration from fantasy video games, (it doesn’t sound electronic but stays within a fairly traditional synth style) notably they are one of the few dungeon synth artists who tour on a large scale. I would also point out winter synth as another more unique take on dungeon synth, it is almost completely atmospheric most of the time and can completely suck you in to its world. I also find winter synth generally isn’t as suited to being background music as it can often have an almost oppressive nature (at least the projects more focused on pure atmosphere than melody). I would also highly recommend the project Lacrimorphosis and their album “streets of lunar deads” the first track on that album “never ending night of falling stars” is absolutely gorgeous and is one of the most emotionally impactful pieces of music I have ever heard. All this is to say don’t get stuck in the traditional sounding projects that are preoccupied with the dark fantasy aesthetic, these are great but there is plenty of different angles to come at the genre from that don’t have to sound derivative or be part of an absurd microgenre.
I call my 38 year old son who never comes out of the basement and thinks he’s a dj Dungeon Synth
He's prolly a bad ass.
@@te9591that would be a funny outcome
REAL
Where can we hear his music?
@adamadeptus3686 i dont know but check out this album called "Onion Knight".
I love that you brought up Secret Stairways. Matthew unfortunately died a while back, but his mom Kathy keeps the Secret Stairways legacy alive. All sales and interactions you have with Secret Stairways online are her.
I got to meet Kathy when I was an organizer for a dungeon synth festival here in Indiana. Amazing person all around.
If you’re into the more epic, high fantasy style of DS, you may like my project Moonkissed Spires!
If you're talking about the Great Lakes Dungeon Siege, I also met her there this year during that event. Unfortunately none of the vendors took debit or credit, so I wasn't able to purchase their tapes until afterwards online. It was a great mini festival, I can't wait for their next one next year.
@@AndrewWukusickI am! We probably met at some point as well haha
Depressive Silence rules, best dungeon synth project other than Secret Stairways
Forest of eternity is an experience worthy of mighty praise
Your videos are always quite deep; well researched; and informative.
This one is no exception.
Well done mate 😊
it is great to hear people talk about jim kirkwood!
hell yea Jim!
Been noticing the amount of research and effort youve been putting into these videos, mad respect
Pretty ironic you're uploading this the day after I learned that my dad recorded some dungeon synth-esque music in the 1980's. I will 100% upload it if I can find it (it is most likely in a tub in my basement).
Caught a Mortiis live show a couple weeks back, so good
Really??
@@devendasmusic Mortiis has a tour with Gorgoroth in Europe . But it is a one-man show and sounds like it is all playback with few samples
i think this video along with your dark ambient one is your best work. holy shit you're cooking with fire
My favorite dungeon synth artist by far is Old Tower. I highly recommend checking him out.
Old Tower is fantastic
Did u watch the video?
1:35 there is an offshoot of dsbm called depressive rock and it's just dsbm with less abrasive guitars and crying vocals because we circled back around to rock in an effort to make the most depressing music possible. some bands would be apati, hypothermia, and intig. You should do a video on it it's pretty interesting
I wish Trey Azagthoth of Morbid Angel had released some dungeon synth material. You can tell just by the Morbid Angel interludes that he could’ve made some cool shit.
The dungeon synth bandcamp scene is extremely eclectic and takes way more inspiration from projects like Fief than any old school records.
Also, no Erang mention? Damn. He's the Mortiis of 2010s and 20s DS, to make an ambitious comparison.
I’ll give Erang a listen while I study for Algebra
@@wyattxhim In his more recent album, Erang collaborated with a few other artists, including one of the guys from Depressive Silence.
It really is amazing how far Dungeon Synth has come. Black metal elitists HATED this stuff at the time. They would look-over the occasional dungeon synth song/intro/outro/etc on a black metal album, but Mortiis got HATE. I'm sure the old reviews of the albums are still on the internet, and the same goes for Burzum's prison albums - they were simply hated by almost everyone.
I'm extremely glad those voices got properly ignored.
I stumbled into a dungeon synth show completely randomly last year. It was very entertaining and silly.
My favorite artist of the evening called Wraith Knight was playing their final song and the power suddenly cuts out. "Uhhhh.....well i guess that spell was too powerful!"
Lunar Womb from Trollhorn (Henri Sorvali) and Fata Morgana from Mortiis are so underrated and belong to my favorites from the early ones together with the perfect Depressive Silence Demo II. Great video and thank you for the research, have to check some of these out!
Must be satisfying to have an underground channel but know all your content is flawless. Bravo 🙌
Thanks for this. There are now two videos (long form ones at least) about dungeon synth on youtube😂 This genre has been relegated to obscure blogs for so long, its great to see it acknowledged in high quality content that will actually reach a decent sized audience. Great vid
The fact I thought about a video like this not existing in your channel just a few weeks ago, makes this a dream come true as I really like your approach on music history! I am one of those that dwelled in the BM scene for a long while and only found out about Dungeon Synth roughly 3 to 4 years ago, as a recognizable thing. I would like to shout out Hole Dweller as an artist, it has the traditional rawness of old school dungeon synth, the cosiness of Fief and it's much more ambient than a lot of the "newer" projects you see around, not to mention the LOTR thematic which makes it an even greater immersion experience.
Great video, as always! Thanks for putting this out!
This video got me into dungeon synth and I must say, I absolutely love artists like hole dweller and old tower
Absolute respect for the man machine record in the background. Kraftwerk fkn rock
The story really begins with a Burzum's track from self-titeld, "Channelling The Power Of Souls Into A New God" - already out in 1992, not with Mortiis. Although Mortiis influenced the genre quite a lot, Varg was the first to merge dark ambient into the black metal setting. The only reason it tends to be 'ignored' by some (but not all) is because of Varg's infamy - nothing to do with music. Taking away credit from actual masterminds & revisionism has become pretty common unfortunately.
"Rundgang Um Die Transzendentale Säule Der Singularität"
Is a very good Dungeon Synth song.
Another recent development is that it seems like tiktok discovered Blod Besvimelse, which I considered a pretty obscure project associated with Grausamkeit. Some of her songs have hundreds of thousands of hits on youtube.
Old RPG games like Ultima and Ultima Underworld's music is dungeon synth for sure
Dont be upset wyatt being that you called keller synth brainrot i must inform you that mourice de jong the man behind gnaw there tounges also has his own keller synth project
Noooo!!!! 😭
And for something more in the realm of winter synth, let's not forget about Die Festung by Paysage d’Hiver!
My favorite bm band ever. Can't believe he's made all this amazing ambient work, all this amazing black metal work, AND all this amazing work combining both of the sounds. He also definitely has some of the best, if not THE BEST album artworks in all of black metal and ambient, no doubt.
A great album by him to check out is "Kristall & Isa". I especially recommend listening to "Aether" and "Der Kristall ist Eis". A soothing ambient atmosphere with a perfect lead-in to the most primal, wintry and monolithic atmosphere I have ever heard.
Paysage D'hiver, to me at least, is the only artist I have heard in any of these styles that just perfectly captures nature.
I have recently been going on a journey of self-discovery; I've been learning who I am and who I want to be. On this journey, I've found/fully accepted five things that I absolutely love: everything gothic, horror, goth music, black metal, and Dungeon synth. Oddly enough, black metal and dungeon synth came as like a duo package; they are inseparable and meant to be together. I'm all here for it.
Thank you for this video; it was well put together and very informative!
I loveee this genre thank you so much for making this video!!!
Great video. Along with Pseudiom's dungeon synth history video, this is one of the most comprehensive videos on TH-cam, so thank you for taking the time to research the genre. My introduction to DS was much like yours, going far down the black metal rabbit hole and hitting early dungeon synth adjacent stuff with Wongraven, so I'm glad you gave that project a shout out. HAILS to Secret Stairways! ⚔️
Great video as always! I'll have to check out all the albums you mentioned that I haven't heard myself. I bet they are all pretty sick!
Dude, the Stargate cover is amazing, the crotch skull 😂. Love your work btw.
Even though I haven't heard any dungeon synth albums, I've always been fascinated by the genre, and watching this video just makes me want to check out Depressive Silence even more.
Depressive Silence II is a 10/10.
Mortiis’ “Song of a Long Forgotten Ghost” is simply magical. Beautiful, repetitive melodies that put the listener under a hypnotic trance. Some would call it boring, but if you know a thing or two about musical composition, you will enjoy it.
Fuck yeah, been keen to see what the next video would be since the iceberg video. Always love me dungeon synth. Writing a dumb DnD campaign for some friends with some dungeon synth background.
Thats a fitting use.
I liked to play RISK whilst listening to bombastic, patriotic "American Military Music" - that always set the backdrop nicely; esp when the jaunty and easily recognisable "Yankee Doodle" begins to pipe its way into your ear 😊
I have been listening to black metal since I was a teenager, and over the past decade youtube has recommended to me most of the the classic albums you discussed and then some over the years. God bless the algorithm. My favorite that I would highly recommend is Medieval Journeys by Gothmog.
I wish you could have mentioned Holedweller and other comfy Synth artists. His work is what really got me into the genre. Otherwise, great video!
@@mainHERO88 I did drop the ball on that cause I remember listening to it in preparation for the video .
@ all good man. I still loved the video and I’m glad you’re showing the genre some love!
You know your day's gonna be good when you see Wyattxhim upload a 30+ min video
Respect for depressive silence. Great project.
I do want to add that, maybe because I am part of the scene, I hear a ton of diversity in sounds in dungeon synth. We have a little scene in the PNW, and no one sounds the same. Everyone puts a ton of work into their projects, like creating an entire lore for their project or theatrics on stage. It amazes me that for such a niche genre, there's so much that it offers.
Haha I love the Dinosynth stuff, I am seeing Diplodocus in February next year 👏🦖
Keller synth next? Cuz that one I’m still interested in learning about, but am unsure as to where information is about it.
I love Old Tower
Dung synth audience must consist solely of old nerds that were forced to endure the same hellish ambient, looping, reverb, echo, skeleton grotto OST in old games for HOURS on repeat back in the day.
Not hating, I am proud to be one of those nerds!
Reminds me of long & lonely nights fighting skellies
People always be saying that Dungeon Synth is melancholic and depressing, I just find it chill and relaxing as well as reflective 😎
🙌🧙🙌 long time fan of 70s krautrock electronic german bands and dungeon synth great video it covers all you need to get into this type of music. Love watching videos like this
Love the vid man. I see you mentioned Thangorodrim which is one of my favorite DS projects. Turns out the artist behind it is the same one behind fief and sequestered keep.
I introduced my friend who has been a House music DJ for over 20 years to dungeon synth and he loves it!
Dino synth is by far the best subgenre of dungeon synth. “Faint Burning Glimmer in the Mesozoic Sky” is epic thematically: planetary extinction!
😆😆😆
Synthosaurus rips
🦕
Diplodocus mentioned
They should do a split EP with Fadades
My love for DS started with the album "The Lunar Lexicon" from Aindulmedir. And especially the title track from this album. For me it is a style of music I listen to when I want to escape reality for a moment. My favourite DS album of all time would be Fjelltronen. Love this video, thankyou for making it!🙌🏻
Pär Boström - you should check out his dark ambient projects
First time I fell in love with DS was way back in 2011 when I was listening to some black metal radio, now long gone, which looped songs and the last song on the list was Mortiis' Emperor of the Dimension Unknown. Absolutely loved it!
Another interesting early experiment that was actually made with gaming in mind was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - First Quest from all the way back in 1985. You can definitely feel the influence of Tangerine Dream in particular.
Been waiting a while for this banger. Love your work!
This might be a rare take
But Dungeon Synth originated from Power Metal
And a strong evidence of it can date back to the releases of "Stratovirus - Fright Night" & "Darkness" Intro before black metal completely claims the genre as there's in the 90s
There also might have been a ton of power metal bands that use Dungeon Synth after Stratovirus
And another thing to take note that Fright Night was Released back in 1989
Dungeon Synth also did kinda spread in other Power Metal Bands so there's quite actually been a 2 ways split of how this genre spread throughout metal
There are either Dungeon Synth fans that came from because Stratovirus
And Dungeon Synth Fans that came from Mortiis
I think Folk Metal fans are also into it but I rarely seen them put Dungeon Synth elements in there Album or Fanbase
If you want some extra 90s dungeon synth stuff , I highly recommend as honourable mentions to check out Gothmog- medieval journey ,and Lamentation- fullmoon over Faerhaaven
early fantasy video game soundtracks are undoubtedly a massive influence on dungeon synth’s sound (almost as if a lot of these musicians are massive nerds)
also i always think about any number of instrumental intros/interludes in metal albums throughout the years influencing the desire to strip down the sound etc.
and the resurgence id say is in some part due to the lord of the rings movie trilogy and its massive proliferation in nerd/internet culture
SUPER fuckin' odd point for me to make... But when you described Fief as a warm blanket inviting for comfort, etc.... I have a very good friend who became a junkie when his life got super fucked up after a para-trooping accident. The way you described Fief was exactly how he described doing heroin when his mental and physical health were at an all time low. the EXACT thing. "warm blanket," etc.
he's been clean and sober for probably well over 15 years. Wife, kid, great job, all the bells and whistles. Very proud of him.
I saw mortiis open for mayhem back in 2022 they actually got bood quite a bit during their set as it wasn't the brashness of "normal black metal" but they told a kind of story like a journey and i personally really enjoyed it
I started listening to dungeon synth exactly because it reminded me of the old-school video games, but it wasnt Runescape or anything DnD related for me, it was Lionheart, Stronghold, Age of Empires, Sacred, Oblivion. Lockdown days led me to atmo-black metal, and dungeon synth was the result of youTube recommendations (them being useful - rare thing). Thus, I started experimenting with synths and free vst plugins (well, I just couldnt afford it, lockdown left me without my job as a stage tech guy).
Gotta add that the "second wave" of dungeon synth was strongly pushed forward by the guy under the name Erang. Very prolific dungeon synth artist, who started in 2012, and releases music regularly to this day.
I found it during my freshman year of college after playing Hexen and wondering if there was music similar to that game’s soundtrack.
I had the pleasure of hanging with Mortiis for about an hour prior to his Boston show. Humble legend. Check out Out Of Season records.
Fata Morgana - Fata Morgana (1995)
(A personal favorite of mine.)
Good one indeed! More Mortiis.
Mortiis's book "Secrets of my kingdom" is actually pretty decent if you're into that kinda stuff. Not sure if he reissued it but I got one of the first prints.
0:38 there is many dungeon synth projects with screaming
I agree so much about the burzum album sounding like runescape or the old elder scrolls I always thought that.
Secret Stairways is so great! I own the repress of enchantment of the ring on record. Great album
I'm very surprised that vond "selvmord" wasn't mentioned in this vid. that record blew me away the first time I stumbled upon it.
Really awesome video Wyatt!
I strongly recommend theese projects: Old Tower; Traveling Alone; Malfet; Uruk-hai (not the Varg one).
Also Burzum (the Varg one)
The label Sweet 8 Bitterness out of Germany releases "dungeon chip" music, they even release stuff on floppy disc and Gameboy cartridges. Highly recommend.
I think you could argue Grausamkeit / B.S.o.D. and his many releases under different names could be considered as an early progenitor of dungeon synth as well. Plus I think Vindkaldr is a dungeon synth project that needs to be recognised as a stand-out in the genre along with fief.
I experimented with dungeon synth back in the early 2000's to about 2007. I was heavily influenced by Burzum's synth albums and the Mortiis Stargate album. Also like to mention Blackstorm's Black Circle Crusades album as a influence. I don't know if anyone is familiar with that album. I recorded a few tapes of about 50 songs but never got around to releasing any of it as i was very busy with my other bands. Its kinda funny the reason i ended my dungeon synth music was because of the name i was using. I found out there was already a band called Funeral Mist lol.
We need a video about Keller Synth and Tänzelcore too, even if it's a shorter one
You ever see that show Dunngeon with Richard Dunn on Channel 5 Public Access? That really got this genre off the ground, most notably with one of the first appearances of Zwei Dunkel Jungen on the scene.
Tangerine Dream’s soundtrack to the film Legend is very protoDS. Another DS adjacent album that was released in 1992 and influenced all of Norwegians at the time is the sound collage based on The Black Death by When (Lars Pedersen from Holy Toy). The Polish (felt animated) Moomin series (1984 I believe) music is probably the earliest identical spirit that I have heard though.
Nythgraph 🕯⚔️🕯My fav in this sub genre branch out!
Great coverage brother!
Odd you didn’t mention Erang. He’s an absolutely massive face in DS.
I just discovered his music a week ago and is in my Spotify Playlist
Hell, he made an album recently where he collaborated with a few artists, including Mortiis, Jimmy K, and one of the guys from Depressive Silence.
Interesting that you mention the term dungeon synth wasn’t coined until 2011. I think Russ Smith (music journalist who wrote for Terrorizer mag in the early years and ran the Black Tears distro for 2 decades), deserves credit here. When writing about the early Mortiis releases and acts like Wongraven back in 1994/95, he referred to them as ‘dark dungeon ambient synth’. Even Mortiis referred to his music as ‘Dark Dungeon’ back then too. If anyone deserves the credit for naming the style, I would say Russ has a strong case.
31:46
...and that was exactly the reason why I found my own project called "Woyte Lande". Background music can be nice, but i like to listen to music that has a bit more variety to offer. Especially classical/orchestral influenced DS does good work at that.
I remember those first Mortiis albums getting released in the 90's, and most reviewers just swept them on the same pile with Aghast, Raison d'etre and Blood Axis. Nobody seemed to really get it, back then. It just got placed under that very broad 'experimental' umbrella.
Technology has made it easy to make this kind of music easy without sounding like garbage...took a lot more effort back in the day.
Ive been getting into dungeon synth for about a year now, and some of my favorites are Nocturnal Effigy, Erythrite Throne, and Eternal Fear
Really interested into listening to those older albums mentioned
Flowers of Evil by Ruth White, dark electronic album from 1969
I’d love to see a history of funeral doom video! Really enjoyed this one.
Lamentation released 3 albums which I think it's the best Dungeon Synth albums ever created
Excellent presentation as always, Wyatt. How about Elffor? Not only for his pure DS albums, but for his work in general?
Hey man ive watched for a good 2 maybe 3 years an theres a band ive never heard you talk about. ManMan, there not metal and i rlly dont know how to describe their genre but the best way to put it is that every song sounds like a painting. Would love to hear your thoughts on them
Pseudiom's two videos (I'm also considering the winter synth one) about dungeon synth are truly excellent: glad that you have quoted the channel!
Do you think the isolationism of Covid may have helped incubate the neo-dungeon synth scene?
@@spencergrady5501 maybe . Can’t say for certain as the boost for it was starting throughout all of the 2010’s
A lot of local bands in my city started solo noise and ambient projects when they couldn't get together and play as bands during COVID.
How would you describe Arcana who's record Dark Age Of Reason came out in 1996?
I like videos like these about the more obscure sub-genres of Black Metal.
Similar to keller synth is tanzelcore, which can be best described as the sound of witches holding a rave in the woods.
If anyone is looking for a more innovative take on the genre of dungeon synth check out the Italian label Heimat Der Katastrophe , or HDK for short. Notable artists on this label are GNOLL, KOBOLD, Teeth of Glass and many more. Also check out Hobbit synth notable Hole Dweller. Really great video, glad to see more people talking about Dungeon synth, and Dark ambient music.
u should make a whole video about Grausamkeit he's so fascinating
Lord Lovidicus is probably my favorite Dungeon Synth artist.
Idea for a video: Mosr fantastical albums, that's to say, evoke ideas of adventures, sorcery, magic, knights, swords, creatures, etc.
An album that is in this vein is glenn danzig's "black aria" so damn good..came out in 1992..
My first time hearing DS i remember the first old sorcery album coming out. I saw the cover thought thats gonna be a sick BM album and bought it. Then when i put it on i was like wtf is this turned it off and was a bit pissed off i guess the only reason I didn't sell it was because it was number 1/300 i think. Now about 8 months ago i stumbled across depressive silence album morning, and did i ever fall in love with it. I eventually went back to the OS album and loved it. Needless to say im now quite obsessed with the genre and even attended a DS festival (great lakes dungeon siege) just last month. And that was a fantastic experience.
Some of my favorites are
Fief
Tale's under the oak
Depressive silence
Dungeon troll
Utred
Old sorcery
Nest
To name a few
Please do a video on Sopor Aeternus!!! 🙏🏻
Great stuff!
i think the Dungeon Synth had a resurgence because of popularity of Epic Black metal in early 2010's
Fief is awesome!
Fief and Quest Master are the fucking best