Forgotten Pathways - Shrouded In Mystery

Forgotten Pathways play really retro-sounding ambient / medieval "dungeon music" in the vein of early Mortiis or some shitty video game soundtrack. What makes it more akin to a game soundtrack or something like that is the often-appearing drum machine, something which is absent in a lot of this type of music. It makes actually quite a lot of difference; instead sounding like some cheap classical music, Shrouded In Mystery sounds like a lo-fi journey through the arcane.

The synths are long and meandering, often repetitive, and kept in check by the ticking beat of the drums. It is at moments grandiose and others hammy as fuck. There are some vocals, used sparingly, whispering through the mix like long forgotten spirits. I swear this thing loops through twice, repeating on me and making me seem totally insane, or that could just be the nature of this mesmerizing creation.

If you are playing an old RPG then this is absolutely the perfect soundtrack.

Cintecele Diavolui - The Devil's Songs (10")

This is probably one of the more bizarre things that I have bought recently. Cintecele Diavolui is an old alias / side project that was used by Mortiis in the mid/late 90s when he was deep into making mainly dark ambient synth and keyboard based music, or as he called it - Dark Dungeon Music. Cintecele Diavolui is a pretty cool name in my opinion. The phrase means "The Devil's Songs" in Romanian, which is also, rather coincidentally, the name of this 10" mini-album. The five tracks here are spooky, and a little cooky; dark and suspenseful writing portrayed through the slightly cheesy classic-horror medium of synthetic organ sounds. The record claims that the music here isn't performed by Mortiis as such, but by an old vampire called Vukodlak, who Mortiis "brought to life" for this release. Make of that what you will.

Musically, it is a charming yet cheap sounding record. It depends on entirely how you approach listening to the thing, and the same goes for all of Mortiis' 'Era 1' output; if you can get past the fact that this sounds like it has been composed using the shittiest of the shit MIDI keyboard sounds in existence, then you will probably really enjoy it. These quirky, bargain-basement instrumentations can be over-looked on sprawling works such as Født Til Å Herske, Keiser Av En Dimensjon Ukjent and Ånden Som Gjorde Opprør, but The Devil's Songs suffers with the same ailment as The Crypt Of The Wizard's material; once the composition is broken down into smaller tracks with more active instrumentation you can't really ignore the shoddiness of the equipment used. It feels like music on a really old video game.

I suppose that the tackiness to the sound really adds to the overall atmosphere, but if you are familiar with the early Mortiis works listed above, please do not expect Cintecele Diavolui to possess the same haunting and depthless darkness. All in all, The Devil's Songs isn't a bad record in any way, the writing is fantastic, it's just that the method of delivery used could have been more inventive. If you hated The Crypt Of The Wizard era Mortiis, then it's a safe bet you won't like this. Considering this isn't a canon Mortiis release and was marketed as an entirely different project of "vampire music", it would have been super, super awesome if this was played on a real church organ or something, for extra spooky and spine-chilling effect. But, it is what it is.

This was self-released by Mortiis back in the day, using his Dark Dungeon Music label. I would say that this is probably for fanatic-level fans only. Like I said, if you're not too fussed on the Era 1 stuff then I wouldn't bother checking this out. Otherwise, tuck in! *Does insane, Italian-accented vampire laugh*

Mortiis - The Song Of A Long Forgotten Ghost

Out of all the early Mortiis ambient keyboard pieces, The Song Of A Long Forgotten Ghost is probably the one that I am least familiar with, which is a crying shame because it's a truly beautiful piece of music. Sometimes I wish I had the patience to put something like this together but I have to accept that I just can't play the piano, organ, synth or what-have-you without any practice or training haha

Early Mortiis conjures images of lands lost and shrouded in mystery and intrigue; of misty fjords and leaden skies; crumbling castles and times gone by. Yeah. My favourite way to jam early Mortiis when I was younger was to import all of his Era 1 stuff into the sound files for games such as TES III: Morrowind and the likes, and have them as my soundtrack for exploring fantastical worlds. Some of my most affectionate memories of the times spent in those games stem from extremely moving scores such as this. Sad? Yes. Nerdy? Yes. But, it was fucking awesome. I don't normally get that nerdy, but I enjoyed it immensely.

This impossible-to-find gem has been re-released on a series of formats, most notably vinyl and CD, or even a CD-book in a variety of pretty colours. You can even pick up some signed by Mortiis direct from the man himself if you've got a few extra quid spare. It's artists like Mortiis that make me sad to be parting ways with my physical record collection.

Anyways, I implore you listen to the original demo tape recording over any reissue you may come across - the sound here is absolutely amazing; including tape wobbles and treble heavy sound. It's not perfect, but it's so goddamn amazing. Lose yourself in another world!