Albums of the Year 2022

"Aye", the eldest of the owls answers softly. "They are still glittering in the night of those who tread the path of solar solitude. To the rest - to the flock - they are already dead and all but forgotten."

- Lines from The Long Defeat.

A realm at the edge of sanity - Interview with Elminster / Ithildin Tape Production

I was already a few years in the blog cosmos when the first posts of Andrew Werdna surfaced on his now historic website, describing a certain style of dark / fantasy ambient with forlorn medieval aesthetics and initially coining the term "dungeon synth". The genre, initially loosely consisting of side projects of musicians of the second wave of black metal, has undergone a time period of rebirth and reform the last 10 years, with more and more projects and dedicated labels coming up and honouring the forgotten art of the cassette tape. And if you've followed this micro scene even a little bit lately, the name Elminster will surely ring a bell. Restless and with seemingly unceasing inspiration, an abundance of projects are maintained almost solely by one musician, Maeglin Aumar, all at the same time, releasing material quite often and a lot throughout the year, while maintaining his own tape label Ithildin Tape Production too. Under different monikers, he experiments with a wide array of musical templates, spanning from dark ambient, to dusty hip hop, to dungeon synth, to raw black metal, and all over again. Elminster agreed to a discussion that includes an extensive description of his artistic presence, his motives, insight on past releases and a glimpse into the future.