Vindkaldr - Enchantments of Old Lore (2015)

 

 

You climb carefully down the ivy caked against the stone wall, until you make your way to the ground, arms shaking from the strain. You look around to find yourself in what was once a garden, now overgrown so densely that it seems like a jungle. Roots twist gnarling every which way through the soil. Vines cascade all along the packed treeline. Bugs, birds, and some unknown animals in the distance all chipper and hum in a chorus of permeating nature. You wonder to yourself how long this place must've been abandoned to get like this? Was it at one time neat and orderly, with long stretches of clear flat grass and carefully-sectioned foliage? Or even when it might've once been bustling with people, frolicking and fighting in their way, were they happy to let the wilderness encroach into their domain? You walk steadily along, navigating through the thick underbrush, until you reach an open area of paved stone, a large square clearing. In the center is a strange looking tower, intricately detailed with carved embellishments, stretching so far into the sky that you have to squint to see it, covering your eyes from the glare of the sun now peeking through the clouds. There is a cliff on one side of the square, with a waterfall rushing down its side and into a channel through the center of the stone walkway. You see the door of the tower is open, and you proceed inward.

Enchantments of Old Lore is quite a well-known album at this point, and from what I remember was popular even around the time it was released. That was not from any sort of promotional hype, but simply the music itself being so immediately affecting, obviously beautiful to anyone who would take the time to listen. The mood is deeply solemn, reverential, contemplative, and modest, but in awe of some vast grandeur of being. If ever one wanted to make the case that dungeon synth could be spiritual, this album would be a prime example. The composition is a bit sparse and minimal, soft analog-style synth pads drift and waltz in a vast cavernous temple of reverb. There are only ever a handful of layers, generally playing close notes and similar sounds, which all blend together seamlessly. There is a very human organicness, in that everything seems recorded live and loose, even seemingly improvisational at times. I doubt there is any midi quantization going on here. I think you can really feel the artist's focused inspiration in the performance itself. The melodies are mostly simple and unadorned, but quite gorgeous, acting in a very focused way to transport the listener to a place of serene introspection.

When I really think about the surface details of Enchantments of Old Lore, it seems not so straight-up dungeon synth, at least not in the way I used to conceive it. I used to identify rigid riff-based melodic structures, similar to early black metal, as being a distinguishing compositional characteristic. And for the synths I felt sample-based rompler textures were more essential to the dungeon sound, and the more futuristic synthesized sounds of analog and virtual analog style subtractive synthesis usually felt anachronistic, except when hidden just as pads in the background or for a rare moment of otherworldliness. Here pretty much all we get are those very synthy sounds, and not the rigid riff-based structures, but rather a more ethereal floating style of composition, all which would make this album more akin to winter synth, new age, or ambient generally, rather than dungeon synth. So it seems a bit contradictory to even consider this album "dark dungeon music," and yet I still can't shake the feeling that it is planted squarely in the center of the vortex. So that brings me to a couple of different conclusions, firstly that winter synth is dungeon synth and maybe always has been, and secondly, how "true" an album is really depends more on the vibes and attitude of the artist rather than any objective details about the music.

I feel a hesitation in writing about this album, due only to its relative popularity. I was actually reluctant to even listen to it for a few years after it was released because it had so much attention on it. I feel like that is not really fair to the music or the artist though, because if anything it seems like it's trying to resist exposure, and with a track title like "In Solitude Until The End Of Time," I certainly would not think Vindkaldr was trying to be a household name. Sometimes that can make a work all the more appealing to a large audience, especially in a scene so fascinated by obscurity. But I remember the first time I listened to this album, a few years after it was released, I approached it with an attitude of, "Alright, let's see what all the fuss is about," and was blown away. I have not had quite the same reaction to some of the other big hits of the past decade or so, but some of those were even more popular and did not seem to have the same exposure-resistant aspect, and so I was perhaps not as willing to be open-minded. I think this is very much a shortcoming on my part and is partially why I've had such a hard time keeping up with this blog. For some reason I have this feeling that if anyone else is talking about a particular album online then it would be lame for me to also do so. But I think Enchantments of Old Lore is a strong reminder that often things are popular for good reason. To deny ourselves the experience of things just because they're trendy is to be as slavish to the crowd as only following the trends. Ideally we should be able to appreciate things on their own merits, whether they are world-famous or completely unknown.

Even though most people reading this are probably already well-familiar with this album, I'd say give it another spin.  It's great on the first listen and remains great after many more.  It is one of the all-time classics of the genre, a touchstone which I think any music lover could appreciate.

https://vindkaldr.bandcamp.com/album/enchantments-of-old-lore