Thulean Archives

Dungeon synth? Well, what would I know about that? Let's find out. To show you the size of this thing. And apparently it's not entirely unknown. I'm going to tell you. Let us enter the Dungeons of darkness.^[1] As you know, Mortiis is the first dedicated dungeon synth band. And he released his first album in 1993, from what I gather. Or maybe 1994, I don't know. And he called it "Dark Dungeon" music. But before we start talking about the first dungeon synth track, let us talk a little bit about Mortiis. I never corresponded with him, and I'm not sure if I even ever talked to him. But I met him because Old Funeral was playing a concert in Notodden in Norway in the winter of 1991. And we stayed the night there, and so did a lot of other guys, and we all stayed over at a Mortiis place. And it was so crowded that people were lying on the floor everywhere. And we had to walk carefully not to step on people. And Thorlakur (Thorlak), the bass player of orcinal, and I, we were the last to go to bed. That is, there were no beds to go to sleep, and we had nowhere to sleep. So we figured, why not go outside and sleep in the van? We had an old Ford Transit that I had borrowed, to transport the drum kit and everything to Notodden. And it was winter. And it was cold. And if you remember my little story about Harold and me sleeping over in the Ford Taunus, this was worse. It was winter, it was in the mountains, it was snowy. And we were sleeping in a Ford Transit in the back. And I remember we had a soda standing in the car next to us, and when I woke up, it was frozen solid. And frankly, that is my almost entire experience with Mortiis. You see, I was able to read police interviews, and one of the interviews that I read was the one that the police had done with Mortiis. And if you ever wonder if what I'm telling about that case is true, you can ask Mortiis about it, because he knows perfectly well that I'm telling the truth. He knew about Euronymous plans. And now let us return to more cozy subjects, namely the track Dungeons of Darkness. Well, it's not that cozy. I mean, it's a dungeon, it's dark. But you get my point. The reason why I made it was because I saw the gong in Grieghallen. This one. Here, you have the Grieghallen, if you want to be specific about it, it's located about there. And I also saw that the Pytten had an old moog in the studio, this weird synthesizer thing. And the sounds you hear, the screams you hear on the Dungeons of Darkness track are actually moog sounds. So I asked the Pytten to rig a microphone over there. I think he rigged two microphones, actually. And the rattling sound is the sound of the wire touching the gong at some points. And I asked Euronymous, who was present in the studio when I recorded, because he was the record label, and I asked him to hammer on the gong, only with both hands, and asked him to start quietly and then increase the intensity until it's. You just hammer on it like a lunatic. And he did. And that is the Dungeons of darkness track and how we recorded it. And you can always argue that I have no evidence when I say this, but I think it's pretty clear that Mortiis was a little bit inspired by this. I mean, Dungeons of Darkness, Dark Dungeon music. And I'm not at all accusing him of ripping me off or anything like that. I'm accusing him of being inspired, which is a good thing. Good for you, Mortiis. So he picked up this idea of making these dungeon synth tracks and expanded upon it and did it more dedicated with entire albums. And from what I gather, he's pretty successful, too. I've checked the Wikipedia page, and he seems to have released a whole lot of music. And my Dungeons of darkness track was the first Dungeons synth track out there. So when people credit me for having something to do with the dungeons synth genre, they're kind of right. But as you know, it was Mortiis who popularized this and did it more dedicative, thoroughly. So kudos to him for that. So there you have it. My role in Dungeon Synth and the origins and how we made Dungeons of Darkness. And of course, I may add that the dungeon part of this was not dungeon as in historical sense but of course, a role playing game style dungeon. Because if you're a geek, you're a geek... or rather if I'm a geek, I'm a geek. And I did play role playing games, and you should too. That's how you learn English, you know, basic math and so forth.^[2] It's great. Build your imagination, be creative. And may I also add. Yes, reconquests is my role playing game and it's available from Amazon. Thank you for watching. This is where Hellhammer set up his drum kit when we recorded the Mayhem album. The studio when I recorded the debut album was located somewhere up here.. and on the "Hvis lyset tar oss" and "Det som engang var", but on "Filosofem" it was downstairs.

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1. My goth subscribers hanging around in the background.
2. Not the ONLY way, but...