Tag Archives: neofolk

(review) Dark Wooden Cell – Undying stories of a fallen world

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Since I was a kid growing up like twenty five or thirty years ago, I have always loved hard and extreme music, metal and hardcore was my choice. You know, when you are a defiant outlaw kid, all other music and listening to other music is considered poser and treason. But, now when I am closer to forty five years than forty, I learned to enjoy other dark music and one of the genres is also dark folk. Dark Wooden Cell are hailing from Tours area, France. This entity is comprised of two individuals, namely Mike Gory (guitar-vocals) and Bruno Marmiroli (sax/trombone). This is their sophomore album containing nine songs. The music is dark folk with neo folk and even blues influences in the song structures with rich and darkened Mike´s voice carrying us listeners through the apocalypse and ghosts that roam our surroundings and other soundscapes bringing us kind of catharsis of a darkened heart after listening to the record as a whole. Songs are orchestrated in pairs offering a unique concept and aural journey. Acoustic guitar and sax in some songs, trombone in some add to the overall melancholic feeling prevailing through the whole album. My personal favorites are: The radio, The night. If you are a fan of such music, go grab this one.

https://darkwoodencell.bandcamp.com/album/undying-stories-of-a-fallen-world

(band of the week) Dungeon synth from Ecuador – URKU LLANTHU

URKU LLANTHU is a solo musical project originating from the city of Quito-Ecuador, which was born in 2018 and in turn formally comes to light with audio and video material for the year 2020, full disc in physical format that is available since November 2020. Album contains 8 unreleased tracks (1 intro + 7 songs) and bears the name of the musical project URKU LLANTHU accompanied by its official video-clip.

The musical trajectory of the only multi-instrumentalist member of the URKU LLANTHU project (Pablo Mesías) dates back to 1998 when he was part of the band ACRACIA, a period that lasted until 2004.

After this project from 2005 to 2010 he was a member of NEKROPSIA also from Ecuadorian capital.

After a few years in the period from 2013 to 2016 he sang in BLASFEMO shortly after forming ALKITRAN project also originally from Quito-Ecuador; from 2016 to 2018.

2018 was the year when an idea that existed for a long time was born and came to light in 2020 in a totally independent and DIY way under the name of URKU LLANTHU – darkened music adding string instruments, percussion, harmonics such as piano, wind instruments etc. … and thus getting to musically capture the ideas and compositions of its only member Pablo Mesías (Atuk Urku Llanthu – pseudonym) trying to capture the atmosphere of attachment to the Andean worldview and the rescue of the ancestral language Quechua, typical of many indigenous peoples, it resides within the genre Dark Ambient/Dungeon Synth/ Folk Metal in an instrumental way expressing feelings and thoughts of the person who creates this musical framework and the project, under the proprietary seal by the same composer and author named TAKIRI PRODUCCIONES INDEPENDIENTE.

At the moment, audio-visual production in video format is available on YouTube platform official channel URKU LLANTHU:

(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ5HqA5amf8qYE0LkQ-3IjcVQB0SorjkD)

(review) Tir – Persepolis

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Tir started its musical journey in Turkey, but now it resides in Australia. The music of Tir can be described as dungeon synth with dark ambient, dark/neofolk influences in the songwriting and song structures. This record offers 15 songs of epic soundscape. The atmosphere is majestic, epic, yet at the same time sometimes eerie. Dungeon synth is not the music for wide masses and for ordinary people, but all of the hearts that are really into it will find themselves more than satisfied with this album. My personal favorites on this one are Righteous Viraz with such epic almost fantasy melody and also The Dragon King Raised an Army having such vibe and atmosphere that you can almost touch it and feel it with your hands and it can enter all of your body through your eyes, ears and possess your mind and heart having that martial beat and making your skin crawl with goosebumps. But, you will have to find your own personal favorites if you love such music. Go ahead, have a listen, let yourselves go to other dimension with this one.

https://tirofficial.bandcamp.com/album/persepolis