Arcana Liturgia - The Reign of the Mighty King

And at last, the final tape of the three original Arcana Liturgia releases: The Return of the Mighty King. Back a little early since I wanted make up for such a lapse. I've had this on the shelf for quite some time. Originally, this was the release I had planned to post after the last Alviss post in 2017, but equipment issues at the time kept me from getting a decent rip of the audio. After far too long, I'm happy to be posting the most epic of the three class AL tapes. In the meantime, Arcana Liturgia has actually come back to making music, and the new stuff is great, picking right up where he left off many years ago. His first album in 20 years, Tales of an Ancient World is on Bandcamp with a tape on High Cathedral Records (though I believe this is long sold out). AL's previous demos also got a recent re-release in one tape on Gondolin Records. Different mix than the rips here, definitely check them out.

King comes as a natural progression from MCCXXXI and Ars Moriendi, creating an epic tale of an usurped king on a journey to reclaim the throne from his deceitful brother. Lots of instruments and atmospheres featured on this album with some familiar sounds from the prior two tapes but really put to the test of building a grand story. What this album does best is allow the music act as narrative. While each track serves as a scene in the king's journey, the music really speaks for itself in guiding the listener through this tale. Occasionally, narrative/spoken vocals are used to add to the story-telling purpose of this album, but they are sparse enough where they only add flavor and override the music. My favorite moments in the album are the combination of the tracks "The Return of the Mighty King", "The Death of Edris", and "Honour and Glory". The final battle between brothers occurs. The bulk of the self-titled track has this kind of tense yet understated repeated passage with piano, choir leads, and drums that represents the action between brothers. This isn't your typical boss battle music, but something more uncertain and understated. The track transitions into some somber piano moments where its as if the king is accepting the the troubling task of killing his brother. The queen soon comes in congratulate the king on his victory. The following track paints the scene of Edris' funeral, melancholic yet hopeful in tone. The sadness doesn't stick around for long before the victorious tavern fanfare of Honour and Glory begins in celebration the king's victory and the freeing of the land of Alghor.

I recommend reading to the j-card story to get some background of what's going on before listening. We even get a map of the king's travels to follow, another fine touch to the lore of the story. A great tale to conclude the history Arcana Liturgia, with future chapters now unfolding.

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Arcana Liturgia - Ars Moriendi

Back for the official July post (the previous counting as June's) with the second tape from Arcana Liturgia. Glad to be putting this artist into the canon because he really deserves the attention. Ars Moriendi follows the artist's first tape, MCCXXXI, a year after with a fuller sound and more complete concept. Simple j-card layout with a dedication to the great JRR Tolkien. The artist looks a lot like Neige.

As the insert will describe, Ars Moriendi tells the tale of a great warrior, meant to musically transport us back to a time of chivalry, swords, and all that good stuff. Each track represents a part in the story of the life and death of our subject. Every track fits extremely well with its intention; even without the guided insert, you can glean what is happening based off of atmosphere and composition, which a great feat for an artist to accomplish. In Act I, the soldiers line up on the field, militant and true, putting their life on the line for their cause. Act II depicts the praying warrior before battle, calling for strength and protection. For Act III we have some epic fight music as the war erupts. Pounding drums, driving leads, perfect concept synchronization. An ominous Act IV puts the warrior in the face of death to be taken from the Earth (or Middle Earth?). This track kind of reminds me of music late in a Doom game, kind of somber and hopeless but still tense. The second half of this track breaks from the bombast, softer melodies but still dreadful. Our warrior has perished. Act V serves as the mourning song, a piano elegy. You can picture the tears falling from the cheeks of the warrior's loved ones. Evocative stuff.

Ars Moriendi clocks in at around 25 minutes in total with 5 songs, which may seems short for some listeners, but I feel this tale is very complete. Kept my interest from start to finish and really drew up some imagery. Looking forward to posting the final Arcana Liturgia tape soon enough.

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Atropos - Amorte

Huge thanks to my Russian and Italian comrades for this rip. I've been meaning to purchase this tape for some time, but before I did I actually received the rip for this along with a great insert scan from the artist himself, passed along to me by a Russian friend who is always a big help with getting some obscure stuff. This is the first tape by the duo Atropos. Atropos was active in the later half of the nineties as a smaller project of Borys Catelani, founder of the Agipunk and Tetanus labels and front-man of the death doom band Forgotten Kadath and guitarist for the crust band Giuda, and Maurizio Guccini, instrumentalist for Forgotten Kadath. As far as I'm aware, Atropos released four tapes between 1995 and 1998, two being splits, one with Forgotten Kadath and another with Myricae, the other full length tape being posted here eventually! If anyone has either of the two splits, I'd love to hear them.

Amorte is Atropos first release from 1995 and to me is definitely the weaker of the main two releases, but that's not say this one isn't without its merits. The tape opens with Clotho, a fairly lighthearted short song with a deep synth bass pad, playful synthesized pan flute, and live recorder playing (off key at a few points). Reminds me a bit of Bacchia Neraida's or Zweilicht's flute playing. After this brief track, we have Lachesis, a multifaceted song that's almost set up in separate phases. The recorder continues on in a simple melody reminiscent of a campy fantasy movie opening. Eventually the song breaks down and gets darker and incorporates some raspy whispered vocals. Again the song mutates an turns to a church organ as the darkness increases before transforming back to a lighter tone recalling the beginning of the track. The contrast between the simplicity of the first and track and this near twelve minute fantasy journey is nice and the variation keeps you attentive. An odd percussion track follows that is rather sloppy in timing. Not too big on this track, almost seems like its a pallet cleanser after the evolving Lachesis. The A side finishes off with Imago, a rather short folk-ish transition song that brings in acoustic guitar, probably the prettiest song on the tape.

The B side picks up where Lachesis left off, cutting the lighter feel off and diving right back into a slow building darkness with many elements of the previous epic, church organs and whispers included. A tolling bell at the track's end leads us to the outro Giorni... which in my opinion is the creepiest song on the tape. A period of silence, and we're given a hidden black metal acoustic synth burst outro complete with some falsetto wail screams. A fun way to end everything.

Overall, Amorte is enjoyable but it feels like the duo is still kind of getting their ideas together to create something larger. I don't fully consider Amorte to be a dungeon synth tape, proper. It incorporates a number of dungeon-y synth elements that provide a lot to the dark lo-fi atmosphere, but there's just something to it that feels different than much other DS tapes. Maybe some would consider this more as dark ambient with folk elements? Perhaps experimental DS? Maybe you'll disagree, give it a listen.

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Arcana Liturgia - MCCXXXI

It's been just a few days short of four months since the last post, but finally here's a new tape for everyone. Not new exactly, but from 1997 and with very few mentions online as far as I can find. This is the first tape from Italian synth project Arcana Liturgia led by 'Azog the Minstrel'. This first tape of the three tape discography is probably the most primitive sounding out of the three, and despite all the black magic and demon-laden imagery, it's a rather pleasant listen. The synthesizers are kind of crude sounding and very reminiscent of old CRPG games. Four songs all between 6 and 7 minutes with a soft hiss in the background.

The first track is my favorite of the four, a very simple innocent melody carries the song along with square-wave bass drums accentuating a slower second half with quick synth riffs over-top. The second track takes a bit of a darker turn key-wise, showing off a few more instruments. Side B contains the other half of the tracks, with the next being much more atmospherically focused with organs making up the majority of the track. The last song sums the tape of with a bit of everything we've heard so far, ambience, synth leads, chimes, darkness and light together. All together this is a pretty decent first effort.

Aside from this blog posting I haven't seen mention of this tape anywhere other than a few collection sales on some forums and a info-less listing on Rate Your Music. I believe this was originally distributed by Elven Witchcraft, but not an actual release they put out on their label. I included a scan of the little slip that was in the case. Glad to have brought this out thanks to an anonymous trade. More to come.

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(On the last post, I mentioned another coming post for the remaining Cernunnos demo. I have everything ripped and ready to go, but the track names are largely unreadable. I'm getting a bit of help trying to decipher these, but if it turns out we can't figure them out, I'll post the tape anyway and maybe some of you might know).

Askhem - Bjarki

Big thanks to Eugene and Andrew for the files for this one. Much appreciated!

This album was listed in the famous 'Dungeon Synth List' from Andrews blog some years ago. Although now deleted, it lives on here and here. Bjarki is the sole album from the Italian artist Askhem, initially released in 2003 on CD. What stands out initially in this release is it's influence directly from the greats, Burzum and Mortiis. In fact, the second track 'Hvit' starts off identically to 'Han Some Reiste' from Burzum's Det Some Engang Var, and carries the original spirit of that track in a new way (an re-interpretation, if you will, of the original). The album also brings out influence from the brass selections of Mortiis, triumphant trumpets to carry us into the night. However, though you can hear Askhem's influences, Bjarki still stands on its own.

The best part about this album, in my opinion, is its dabbling in neoclassical melodies and orchestral composure. Tracks like 'Fading in Moonlight of Velvet' and 'Tune of Doom' are exquisitely well written and add a refreshing classical voice to the album. The songs are quite varied and don't repeat themselves, going from Burzum-worship, to neoclassical, to medieval, and 'Symphony of Northern Skies, Part 2' actually reminds me of RPG music.

A very well rounded release from Askhem. Gone but not forgotten. If anyone has a physical copy of this release, scans would be lovely!

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