Darktime II

"All the Devils Are Here"

[This is one post in a series about my music mixes.  The series list has links to all posts in the series and also definitions of many of the terms I use.  You may wish to read the series introduction for general background.  You may also want to check out the first volume in this multi-volume mix for more info on its theme.

Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguous—that is, I don’t guarantee that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]

There were a few tracks left over from the original Darktime mix after I trimmed it down to a proper volume length, but not nearly enough for a second volume.  So I’ve had to spruce it up rather significantly to flesh out this set.  Our top artists are probably Black Tape for a Blue Girl, Jeff Greinke, and Nox Arcana, who each have 3 songs between these first two volumes.  In fact, BTfaBG in particular is significant because they were almost certainly the mix starter.  It was from scouring the Internet’s early, primitive sharing sites that I accumulated the vast majority of my BTfaBG collection, and many of them inspired me to pair them up with other, equally tenebrous tracks, and that’s what eventually turned into Darktime.  You may recall that this is one of my “mood mixes,” which are the small set of mixes between the pre-modern and modern mixes.  And there was a lot of “stuff I found floating around on the Internet” involved in those.

Now that I’m bringing the mood mixes into line with the modern mixes, there’s less of that.  Most of the BTfaBG I own now I bought, because I wanted to have the full albums.  Take “Left, Unsaid”: it’s a meandering, ethereal, but still creepy track, and, when the vocals finally kick in nearly halfway through, they’re murky and provide more atmosphere than lyrics.  It’s a great example of what makes Sam Rosenthal’s personal project so perfect for this mix.  I’ve had a copy of “Left, Unsaid” for æons now, but I only bought This Lush Garden Within, their fifth album (and yet still considered one of the early ones), fairly recently.  Which is how I came across “Into the Garden,” another track off that album, which shares the gothic horns and murky vocals, but gets right into it much more quickly, and then layers on some female vocals for good measure.¹  As for Greinke, I’m returning to Cities in Fog, wherein I drew one of his tracks for last volume, because it really is the album of his that’s best suited for this mix.  “Moving Through Fog” is exactly what it says on the tin, complete with echoes that you can’t quite pin a direction to and muffled industrial sounds that could be machinery or equally could be restless spirits.  Nox Arcana also returns with its same album from last time, Legion of Shadows, which likewise is just too perfect for this mix.  “Spirits of the Past” is, as the name implies, pretty spooky, but also weirdly pretty, with its bell percussion and synthy, Phantom-of-the-Opera-esque melody; “Ancient Flame” is much calmer, giving a slight Middle Eastern vibe, like a night in the Arabian desert.

There are other returning artists as well: Amber Asylum is back with a short, bridge-like tune that begins the transition into the middle third of the volume.  “Ave’ Maria” is what you’d hear if you dared engage the old-time phonograph you found in the haunted house you were exploring.  Nox Arcana’s progenitor Midnight Syndicate² provides the “Epilogue” from their Carnival Arcane, which is here used as a bridge to transition from “Ancient Flame” to the closing triptych of the volume.  The new-age-y Angels of Venice also return with a quite long track, “Tears of the World (Lacrimae Mundi),” which I almost ditched several times; the first minute and a half is more reminiscent of Incanto Liturgica, but after that it settles into a solid, Halloweeny vibe.  Darkwavers Love Is Colder Than Death are also back, this time with “Tired to Death,” a synthy track with a funereal beat, though it does pick up a bit in the middle, and Susann Heinrich adds some ghostly vocals as well.  And we also return to the soundtrack of the original Dark Shadows for a “Seance” from from composer Robert Cobert, which sounds a bit like what the original Star Trek’s theme would have been if it had been a horror series instead of a scifi one.

This volume also reflects my newfound passion for gaming music.  Jeremy Soule provides “Aquarium of Alkonos,” a spooky, echoey track from the Icewind Dale videogame, and there’s a Jason Hayes track from the World of Warcraft game soundtrack,³ “Duskwood,” which is perfect for exploring creepy woods at night.  The newest addition to this volume—not added until I actually started getting organized for this post, in fact—was “Let Them In,” a track from the Candela Obscura soundtrack, credited to “Critical Role & Colm R. McGuinness,” though I suspect McGuinness did most of the work.  We’ve heard from McGuinness before, everywhere from Shadowfall Equinox VIII to every volume of Eldritch Ætherium except the first,⁴ and here he turns his penchant for dramatic, cinematic music to a creepier bent, as befits the Candela Obscura game.  Plus it flows so beautifully off the LICTD entry that I knew it was perfect here.

Like Greinke, Kevin Keller is usually found on Shadowfall Equinox,⁵, but “Chamber Doors” is a lot darker tonally than his usual fare, so I thought it worked well here.  And French soundtrack composer Xcyril closes us out with a weird, synthy track called “Organique.” The foreground gives insects-scattering-in-a-panic vibes, while the background is more howling-wind-on-a-cold-winter’s-night, but the whole thing works well here, and it fades into a muted something-else-entirely in a very satisfying way.

It’s also not that surprising to see hardcore gothic representatives Faith and the Muse here; “And Laugh—but Smile No More” is a creepy little harpsichord bridge that takes us solidly into the center stretch of the volume.  And witchhouse project oOoOO winds down that center stretch with the short “Crossed Wires,” which wouldn’t really be out of place on Cantosphere Eversion, but I thought it was dark enough to work well here.  As for brothers and film composers Mychael and Jeff Danna, they’ve worked together on films such as The Boondock Saints, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and the animated version of The Addams Family, so they know how to do creepy and dramatic, and how to combine the two.  A Celtic Tale: The Legend of Deirdre is the soundtrack to an imaginary film⁶ about legendary Irish folk hero Deirdre, protagonist of a tragedy which could put any of the classic Greek ones to shame.  I’m not sure what part of the story “Druid” is supposed to represent, but, as it comes late in the album, it’s probably not a happy one.  This is the perfect song for meeting with a mysterious mage to seal a dark pact, and it flows beautifully into “Left, Unsaid.” Plus its slow boil makes it a great opening track.

Darktime II
[ All the Devils Are Here ]

“Druid” by Mychael Danna & Jeff Danna, off A Celtic Tale: The Legend of Deirdre
“Left, Unsaid” by Black Tape for a Blue Girl, off This Lush Garden Within
“Moving Through Fog” by Jeff Greinke, off Cities in Fog
“Aquarium of Alkonos” by Jeremy Soule, off Icewind Dale [Videogame Soundtrack]
“Chamber Doors” by Kevin Keller, off Intermezzo
“Ave' Maria” by Amber Asylum, off Frozen in Amber
“And Laugh—but Smile No More” by Faith and the Muse, off Evidence of Heaven
“... You” by DJ Food, off Kaleidoscope
“Into the Garden” by Black Tape for a Blue Girl, off This Lush Garden Within
“Spirits of the Past” by Nox Arcana, off Legion of Shadows
“Tired to Death” by Love Is Colder Than Death, off Teignmouth
“Let Them In” by Critical Role & Colm R. McGuinness, off Candela Obscura [RPG Soundtrack]
“Crossed Wires” by oOoOO, off Without Your Love
“Hell Is Empty” by Emilie Autumn, off Fight Like a Girl
“Psalm” by Koop, off Sons of Koop
“Tears of the World (Lacrimae Mundi)” by Angels of Venice, off Angels of Venice
“Ancient Flame” by Nox Arcana, off Legion of Shadows
“Epilogue” by Midnight Syndicate, off Carnival Arcane
“Duskwood” by Jason Hayes, off World of Warcraft Soundtrack [Videogame Soundtrack]
“Seance” by Robert Cobert, off Dark Shadows, Volume 1 [Soundtrack]
“Wandering Heart” by Xcyril, off Organique

Total:  21 tracks,  76:10

What’s unexpected here?  Not too much.  Classically trained violinist Emilie Autumn is usually more suited to Fulminant Cadenza, where we’ve already seen her, and Distaff Attitude, where we haven’t (yet⁷), but “Hell Is Empty” (which also provides our volume title), is a creepy little bridge that I thought perfectly transitioned us from the center to the back stretch.  And that back stretch kicks off with an even more unlikely candidate, Koop.  The electrojazz Swedes are perhaps the last folks you’d think would produce something dark and gothy, but “Psalm,” from their first album (which is the least jazz and the most electro), feels like a song from a black-and-white gothic horror movie—you know the kind: unsettling, but not really scary.

And, finally, DJ Food is Londoner Kevin Foakes, who we’ve heard before on Mystical Memoriam.  He’s an electronica artist who often ranges from upbeat electropop to downtempo chill, but ”... You” is a short, vaguely unsettling track with some muddled female vocals in the middle (and some similarity to “Psalm,” actually).  It was too perfect for this mix for me not to include it here.

Next time, we’ll start trying to achieve inner peace using electronica beats.

⇐ Darktime I

Darktime III ⇒

__________

1 The Internet seems disinclined to identify the female vocalist for me, but I’d guess it’s Susan Jennings, who did the artwork for the album, wrote some of the lyrics, and is credited with vocals on at least one other track.

2 I feel comfortable calling them that, because Joseph Vargo, who basically is Nox Arcana, got his start working with Midnight Syndicate before breaking off to do his own project.  And the MS guys have definitely credited Vargo with a lot of their vibe, such as their themed albums which seem specifically designed to be played during Halloween parties.

3 Which we’ve mostly seen thus far on Eldritch Ætherium, specifically on volumes III and IV.

4 So II, III, and IV.

5 Specifically, volumes II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII.

6 At least that’s how AllMusic described it.

7 Perhaps in the fullness of time.