This is probably the weirdest release I have written about and it is wonderful. Back when I was writing about dungeon synth heavily, there was a small niche of creators experimenting with chiptune music and combining it into a CRPG aesthetic. This was music that sounded like the soundtrack to video games that never existed but you could almost envision it in your head. I have not heard much music since that time and Goblin Priest was something that brought me back to the reason why I love this genre in the first place. While chip music has a style and sound, each composition takes on unique life. In the case of Dank Vision Sewer Crawl, the life is a sidescrolling rougelike 8-bit cartridge game. With matching album art and tongue in cheek description on the Bandcamp, this whole production is irreverent and successful in everyway.

The IXth Key is a project based in Secret Corridor Records. Secret Corridor is less a label and more of a universe with different projects ostensibly all by the same person who goes by “S”. The IXth Key is one entity along with Spectral Castle, Medieval Secrets, Winter Pathways, Forgotten Passage, Royaume des Brumes, Secret Corridor, and Filicophyta. I could be wrong about some of those, but this is what I am guessing. It also would not be the first time an artist has split their creativity among a menagerie of outlets and considering that each entity possesses a unique yet familiar composition, it is safe to assume that this is all revolving around one person. The IXth Key is perhaps the most magical of alll of the Secret Corridor releases. “Upon My Frozen Land,” is emerging as one of the best releases from The IXth Key out of earlier experimental recordings. Though the release is 20 minutes in the same tonal space, it makes use of the atmosphere in a demo(?) that is accomplished and touching.

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Archana is the second release from Mystic Timbre I have reviewed and comes since the first, Alloch Nathir, was a wonderful journey into forest synth. Before I get into this current release, I want to make special mention to the rest of Mystic Timbre’s catalog as it is a free form menagerie of electronic, progressive, experimental releases all with their own unique outlook on life. Rites, from Archana, is no different as its tone and demeanor differs from Alloch Nathir. Where one was meditative cloaked in mature ambiance, Archana is more ancient with classic stoicism at its roots. Overcast in comber silence, Rites pays tribute to dungeon synths tradition of solitary wanderings through glacial melodies and grey dawns. Both Archana and Alloch Nathir draw lineage from the same post black outfit Abhasa and these releases, much like the history of dungeon synth, are intimate meditations on immersion.

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Spellwind was a February release from Us based Fogweaver which was a followup to a self titled debut in 2019. Both releases were greeted with acclaim and praise from the small community of fans most certainly for their somberness and mystical qualities. Spellwind is also the second release inspired and dedicated to Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series. Similar to the ERRETH-AKBE release a few month’s back, Spellwind captures the non Tolkien focus and opens up a world guided by seas and islands and allows soft fantasy synth to populate the world. I maybe a little late on this release but I am thankful I did catch it before it flew away.

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It is odd and wonderful to see a dungeon synth record, which came out a few weeks ago and still with a massive amount of Bandcamp support. Fen Walker is a Us based dungeon synth artist whose second record continues on the progressive path of the debut Hail! O’ Barrow Lands! . I have already lauded the progressive sound of dungeon synth with Hole Dweller and Fen Walker’s The Totem Wilds Call Thy Name adds to my hypothesis that basement fantasy synth mixed with a 70’s progressive structure is not only agreeable but also something that could define the sound if given the chance. With the grounds for experimentation which does not lapse into artsy experimentation, the wild journeys one travels is completely immersive and something that transports the listener to far away lands.

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