Artist: Mountainfog
Title: Flood Of Dreams
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Blaggard Records
Blindly casting my spare coinage upon the sea of chance with only the knowledge of the label and a cool choice of art to guide my chance is kinda the path I wander a lot of times. It’s fun as long as I know how much money I can afford to spend any given month (and who knows how long my current situation will last, eh? But its literally the money I don’t spend on beer any longer…) So this time I headed up a mountain path I had not seen before somewhere around Glasgow and found myself wreathed in fog.
A little flurry of light percussion and the first chord on the synth is both rich and exciting, raised higher by a light melodic refrain; ‘Beyond The Citadel’ has a sound that is like magic and glass and sunlight reflecting in the distance as you stare and wonder what might be over there. And like the album you just have to try.. The xylophone tones are just exquisite and conveying both wonder and inquisitiveness, both the steps you take on the exploration into the other and the magic that draws you on as the synths weave the backdrop of the vast world around you as a reminder that not all is safe. It’s a beautiful introduction the Mountainfog; a clear identity, an artistic style of broad brushstrokes and delicate precise detail so you feel both the lone adventurer on their narrow path and the wider world which created that path.
‘Upon Fog Clad Mountain Peaks’ is by contrast more ominous, or demanding of care. The synths, deep and grey, have a feel of grand cinematic electronica and the closer melody the fingers and footsteps picking out safety in a place that hides much. There is a tingle of mystery here too; ancient and impassive. Not noticing your presence, though perhaps, just maybe, something in the fog does. Malice or curiosity? Who knows, but the strange beauty of the music and the place described entices you to pause at least.
‘To Wander The Ancient Forest’ is a quiet and if not sombre then still place. It’s age rests heavy in the synths wash and melody. Perhaps there are signs of residents, animals or more, but the long centuries that the forest still holds in the living trees is like a great blanket that swallows sound. The music to me describes the slow careful and respectful pace that comes to you in such places, the wariness needed as an intruder but also the tug on your soul at the majesty that the ancient world commands, the beauty it radiates.
‘Lost Within Caverns Of Hallucination’ is a trap we blunder into, where how we entered, how long ago is wiped in a flutter of notes and an eerie hypnotic melody. It wanders and circles and shifts and moves. The only point of reference in the circling refrains, layed upon each other is ourselves and the lights, the dizzying lights…
‘Ascension’ has a little of that synthwave feel to its opening; grandiose without any pomposity. You feel rays of light in the music, the pace like solemnly mounting a staircase that may have no end. But the light is the treasure and we ascend…
‘Flood Of Dreams’ is the coda. A mesmeric dance of light, fluid playing and slowly swirling synth. It really is a flood of lightshow and transporting refrains woven in and out. There is a restless feel to it too for me. Perhaps too many hot nights rest in my brain at the moment but it is so like the carousel of images and insanity that overtake me, and yet here this is a strange joy to it too. Memories mingled in the dreams of places seen and secrets uncovered.
And isn’t that what dungeon synth is about?
‘Flood Of Dreams’ has a live feel to a great deal of the playing; just that energy of being in the moment and yet the arrangements are so detailed too. The use of the harder xylophone like sounds offer melody and percussion in one, or a counterpoint to the seamless colours of the synth sounds and draw you to the centre of the moment. And the musical storytelling is just so rich here too. A perfect little world of sidequests perhaps? So well worth your exploration indeed.
Gizmo
MOUNTAINFOG – Flood Of Dreams | MOUNTAINFOG | Blaggard Records
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