For better or worse, we live in an age of man. The last ships to Lothlorien sailed off long ago; the three Fates have ceased their weaving; Arthur still waits in his tomb for resurrection. Dungeon synth artist Erang’s new album TOME ZERO contains ten melancholy tracks written while trying to process this age without magic.
Nailing down what, exactly, makes dungeon synth different from the many other genres of ambient synthesizer music is a little difficult. Although dungeon synth began as a black metal offshoot genre, its revival post-2012 by artists like Erang is more rooted in the aesthetics of medieval fantasy than the aesthetics of black metal. This has led to a broader swath of influences, whether they come from fantasy novels, movies, or video games.
“My dad, born in 1946, is a huge fan of fantasy and science fiction,” Erang told me over email. “When I was a little kid, he used to tell me the stories of Bilbo fighting the spiders or the riddle in the dark with Gollum to put me to bed. We had The Silmarillion at home. Later (like any kid from 1982) I fell in love with all the movies from that golden era: Conan, The Dark Crystal, Legend, Willow, etc.”
Erang said that all of his dungeon synth albums exist as narratives in a fantasy world of his own creation.
“I’ve been very active in the revival of Dungeon Synth with my first album, TOME I,” he said. “All my albums take place in a world of my own creation, the Land of the Five Seasons: fantasy and fictional inventions mixed with my personal history, people and places from my real life, forever lost.”
TOME ZERO is another part of this cycle, blending real life anxieties of the trajectory of the world with synthesizers that settle in your headphones like mist creeping over a castle wall. On bandcamp, he describes it as “cathartic music to face the darkness and, if not overcome it, at least cope with it.”
“Well, [it’s] nothing really new, and I’ll state the obvious here,” Erang said before listing off a familiar series of concerning trends: “Political madness, ecological threats, wars between nuclear powers, the rise of AI, fake news, and the omnipresence of social media and phones… Things have kind of accelerated lately, and I guess it’s depressing for a lot of us, even in wealthy countries.”
While the current state of the world is distressing, he also said that he doesn’t see things in terms of “hope or despair,” and instead takes the long view.
“I don’t think there’s any meaning in our existence or in the universe at all,” he said. “Nature and science don’t care about hope or despair, if you know what I mean. We just exist, if that word makes any real sense at all, and that’s it.”
That may sound rather bleak, but for Erang’s artistic practice, it gives him a clarity of vision. Erang said that making art is his lifeblood—he isn’t able to not do it. And in return if the music he makes touches other people, then that’s enough. If, as Erang told me, prisoners in concentration camps still make drawings, then art is never futile.
“I can’t do anything other than create every day, or I’ll drown in madness,” he said. “And I’ve received many messages over the years from people living in very difficult situations or in countries at war, who told me that my music helped them feel a little bit better during the short time they were listening to it.”
Instead of being driven by vocals and lyrics, dungeon synth is primarily driven by tone, mood, melodies and rhythms. Erang said that this album marks a “new beginning,” and was inspired by artists like LORN, Boards of Canada, Oneohtrix Point Never and ULVER. Tucked away near the end of TOME ZERO is a song with vocals on it, which Erang recorded on an old German tape recorder that his grandfather owned in the 1970s.
“When I make music or drawings, it’s always a very organic process,” he said. “It’s like a big puzzle, and even I don’t know what the final image will be, but it all makes sense once it’s finished. I don’t plan things. They reveal themselves as I work on the album. So I can’t tell you why I made this track, but it was needed at that very moment in the album.”
Listening to the album feels a bit like holding your hands around a candle as the flame flickers, threatening to go out. The tones sound distant and delicate—Erang’s voice on “La mort d’un parent (Death of a parent)” crackles, sounding as if he is idly singing this tune to himself, in an old room, all alone. It’s these brief glimpses of humanity and its texture that make the album stand out within the genre. It’s a reference to an imagined past, but taken in the context of our very material and depressing present day. As the album closes with “The Last Child on Earth,” it leaves you with the sounds of children playing. I sat in silence after it was over, feeling like I had just returned from a long journey. While the album does at times feel bleak, it doesn’t wallow in it. In the world of TOME ZERO, there will be another dawn.
“My goal isn’t to drag the listener further down,” Erang said. “If these tracks can provide even the smallest cathartic release or help someone cope with the darkness for a brief moment, then my job is done.”
Gita Jackson
