It's been awhile since I wrote anything here, and that was mainly due to expending all my creative energies on music and turning ever more inward due to the recent plague. Staying at home away from everyone has never been difficult for me because I just don't feel attached to the human race. I suppose a childhood of being bullied and the oppressive mind control of a Catholic school system didn't help improve my impression of my fellow man. I'd like to say that I shook all that off and have now embraced love and acceptance of everybody but that is simply not the case. Truth is, I enjoy being alone and I use that time to create.
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| Technics SX-K500 inherited from Evelyn Sytsma |
During the pandemic, I decided I wanted to come out of it a better musician, so I finally embraced the keyboard and decided to learn at least a little basic music theory. I've always avoided learning too much music theory because I thought that it would reduce the originality of my music. I feel like I disproved that since my options are greater now than before. And actually, I've not played much guitar since I first laid fingers on the very beautiful synthesizer that had patiently waited in my basement ever since my grandmother-in-law Evelyn passed away and left her instrument with my wife and I.
Luckily, there exists a perfect outlet to my budding and amateurish attempts at synth music: Dungeon Synth and the slightly newer Synthwave / Vapowave scene. Dungeon Synth is by no means new to me, since I've been an obsessed Mortiis fan since the 90's. Those Mortiis albums were spun here more times than I can count. So, my first attempt at a dungeon synth release was Nebuleth - Vampire Planet.
I chose to release this only on Cassette tape and Minidisc (one of my favorite formats of all time). I had a lot of experience with Minidisc, since I had used a stereo Minidisc recorder as a mixdown/mastering deck back when CD burners were thousands of dollars and the MD deck was only $400. I also recorded the first Satan's Almighty Penis demo and the Erasmus demo on a Mulititrack Minidisc recorder, the Sony MDM-X4.
The Dungeon Synth community seems to embrace analog tape and the synth/vapor wave community dips it's foot into Minidisc so I decided to try that route. For the most part, it has been extremely satisfying to be able to produce an entire album in much shorter time that it ever took me to produce any of my When Bitter Spring Sleeps heavy metal offerings. Plus, the size and quality of the Minidisc has allowed me to avoid the insanity of the vinyl scene and all that over-hyped madness and waste. Now, I know that is going to irritate someone, so I'll just say that yes, I think vinyl is ok, but given the problems the world faces right now environmentally, I think those huge platters of plastic shipped around the world have no place in the future.
- Lord Sardonyx 2022