Owl Ripper Recordings has just released a big slice of dark ambient and dungeon synth goodness: Shadowlands 4. I'm honoured to say that one of my own Reality Scruncher tracks, Breaching The Threshold, is nestling amongst the 19 other tracks it contains. Head over to Bandcamp to check it out. It's set to Name Your Price, which means you can even get it for free if you like.
Breaching The Threshold is from my Ennui and Terror in the Void album, and if you like the track, you might like to know that you can pick up any of my albums (or all of them) for 25% off until Sunday 12th Nov. Just enter "realityscrunched" at the Bandcamp checkout :).
Mundane anxieties are
boring. Fantastical ones are exciting. That seems to be the general
rule, speaking for myself at least. The same goes for dreams. Give me
a “fleeing the monster” nightmare over a “being continuously
late” anxiety dream any day. I mean any night. Trappa Skunk’s
Return to the Zombie Zone is a jazzy, dark ambient,
dungeon-synth album that’s based on just such a situation, one in
which the plot follows someone heading from the countryside, into the
city, and eventually, to the underground realm. There are zombies to
avoid, wizardry, and chaos, and Trappa Skunk’s music gives us the
soundtrack to this horror flick.
For me, Return to
the Zombie Zone contained a quirky, upbeat sort of horror. Think
The Simpsons’ Tree House of Horror mixed with elements of
Big Trouble in Little China and The Walking Dead.
There’s warmth here, with plucky whimsical rhythms and vocals,
along with jazzy elements that add a kind of melancholy to the 80s
horror atmosphere.
Ghost Town Blues is a
great track that encapsulates some of these elements. It begins with
plucked notes and a swelling drone, before harmonica-like tones set
up a jaunty melody. There are some sweeping, ominous notes, but then
things turn jaunty again. This alternating between the ominous and
the cheerful continues, with added doses of buzzing, fuzzing rhythm,
at one point ending with a sound similar to the Metal Gear Solid
“brriiiiiing” that the guards emit when they spot you. A fun
track that felt like I was on a bus journey, watching the strangeness
of the town drifting ever past my window.
Another track that
stood out for me was The Sewer. It opens with a kind of “police
chase” feeling, the low growly notes meshing with higher blares and
a scratchy beat. As the track continues, an organ-like tone makes it
feel a little like being at the fun fair, with flurries of piano
notes and moments of quiet hanging threat that almost bring things to
a total stop. I can imagine the flashing lights of a cop car
reflecting back from oozing brickwork as they race through a large
sewer, the furtive denizens scurrying away like the rats that they
share their home with. Another fun track.
A track that felt a
little more sedate was Trailer Park. It begins with slow, warm
electronic tones, and then enters a kind of “jazz lounge near
closing time” feeling, piano-like notes tinkling alongside the
deeper tones. A scuffed beat and some brassy tones join the melody.
It feels whimsical too after the midpoint, when faster flurries of
notes and chiming tones begin. This is a sad or mellow track, and for
me, suggested a trailer park lit by faint moonlight, a park filled
with strange creatures conducting their nightly business.
The final track that I
wanted to mention is Unholy Temple of The Chaos Monks, because what
would an apocalyptic landscape be like without religion showing up
and making things far worse. This track opens with plucked notes and
chant-like vocals, ones with a warbly quality behind them. There are
chimes, gongs and organ-like tones, and both male and female chants,
setting up the impression of a candle-lit space of worship, one rife
with dark happenings and sinister gods. An ominous, apocalyptic
track.
Return to the Zombie
Zone is a fun jaunt through a
dangerous environment. While I like my music more dark ambient than
anything else, I appreciated the dark whimsy and the way that certain
of the tracks brought to mind various retro horror movies or
atmospheres. I also suspect that the sequence of events hinted at by
the track titles would make an excellent framework for a table-top
gaming session, if put in the hands of a competent game master.
Visit the Return to the Zombie Zone page on Bandcamp for more information. Trappa
Skunk has also posted the whole album on YouTube which you can check
out below:
Dark Ambient Review: A
Silent Vigil for Oncoming Plagues
Review by Casey
Douglass
I’ve
seen a lot of dark ambient fans listening to dungeon synth in recent
months. I’d flicked through a few of the albums that fell across my
timelines, but I wasn’t really sure if it was for me. A few weeks
ago, dark ambient creator Joseph Mlodik (Noctilucant), sent me a
review code for his new music project Gavella Glan and its first
album release: A Silent Vigil for Oncoming Plagues. It’s
described as a mixing of dungeon synth and fantasy music, and is
largely inspired by The Witcher 3, even featuring some samples
from CD Projekt Red’s game.
What
I first noticed about the music of A Silent Vigil for Oncoming
Plagues, was a kind of perky innocence to many of the tracks. For
me, things felt for the most part, clean, chirpy and optimistic, and
the moments of darker tone felt like a safe kind of darkness, the
difference between watching a horror and being in one, if that makes
sense. Joseph explains in his album description, that this album was
born in a period of isolation, and from “Something reminiscent of
old video game scores, the 90’s output from Mortiis, forgotten
memories, lust for adventure, and a means to escape this deranged
world and to momentarily cope with it...” With that description in
mind, I think he nailed it.
In
the very first track: The Calm Before The Storm, the listener is
treated to bell-chiming notes, sparkling outer tones, birdsong, and a
mellow synth sound. It’s a peaceful track, with the odd, harsher,
foreboding sound. It felt like walking up a grassy hill and seeing a
quaint village laid out in the distance, the golden sunlight of dawn
catching in the lazy woodsmoke of the chimneys. Other tracks might
differ in tone but again, never felt threatening or too ominous. The
Ones Atop the Mountain is a great example. After a low, droning,
windy opening, once the melodies begin, it feels like a fun adventure
again, rather than a dire expedition. It was genuinely nice.
The
Oxenfurt Drunk is one of my favourite tracks. It starts with a voice
saying “I’m here to talk about the contract!” and a jaunty
string-like note with sparkles at the fringes kicks off. We hear
corks popping out of bottles, drink pouring, and a little later, this
pouring turns into a kind of “infinite pour”, becoming part of
the music. It sounds like a potion being poured, backed by drunken
muttering, and later, a confrontation and a nasty voice saying “I
sense your blood!” This track felt zany, intoxicated, and just like
how a pub fight would probably sound in a fantasy world of magic and
poverty.
Another
of my favourites was A Stormy Night of Arcane Hexes. It opens with a
distant chiming and an oncoming rumble. Insects chitter and there is
a dark shimmer to things. You can hear something panting, with
whispers intruding at the edge of the soundscape. A haunting female
vocal begins, the odd bell-chime, and a sparkling tinkling. Later,
there is laughter, wind and rain. This track felt very much like what
someone stumbling into a witches’ circle might experience, or maybe
someone harried by playful sprites as they walk through a haunted
woodland.
The
title track, A Silent Vigil for Oncoming Plagues, is probably the
most dark ambient track, in my opinion. It opens with a pulsing
electronic tone and an oozing trickling. There is a deep vibration
and ominous, string-like notes. It feels sad and foreboding. A deep
shuddering bass sound rumbles along like a giant creature sleeping,
and a female vocal floats and nestles on top. This track felt like a
world dancing on the precipice, the last good times about to slip
into the chasm, and people trying to catch the last small enjoyments
that they’re able.
A
Silent Vigil for Oncoming Plagues is a fun album, one that taps
into some of the retro feeling of old Saturday morning cartoons and
classic video-games. I think that the dark ambient, where it seeps
in, does a great job of keeping it anchored, balancing the ying and
the yang of lightness and darkness nicely. I’m still not certain
that dungeon-synth and this style of album will be something that I
visit regularly, but I did enjoy the time I spent in Gavella Glan’s
world.
