Tonight We Siege: Live from the Northeast Dungeon Siege MMXXIII

Dungeon Synth live is something to behold. Quite simply, you don’t know what you’re going to get. There is something mysterious about it, in a sense. The NEDS Fest in 2019 opened my eyes up to the vast amounts of sounds and styles one can incorporate in what they conceive as falling under the dungeon synth umbrella. By that, I mean, there’s no real live act I’ve seen that is similar to the other. While we all know that black metal is the true foundation of this genre as far as aesthetics and tradition goes, there is that kind of stuff and then the stuff that is more modern in both how it is portrayed live and how the aesthetics and visualizations go. It varies so much between each artist to the point where it’s extremely interesting to see how people pull this stuff off live.

-Khand. Live Dungeon Synth. Dungeon Synth Forums. 2020

“I am 80% sure that is the person who I think is so I am going to go over and say hello. What is the worst that could happen if I am wrong? I look silly?

-Me. The Entire Weekend.

Imaginary Friends

At one point it would be weird to see a live dungeon synth festival. In 2023, it is less weird and more of a reality. I mean, it still is pretty weird if we are being honest. It wasn’t until flying into Worcester, Massachusetts that I realized I have been mispronouncing the name of this city all of my life. I am not going to pronounce it here but understand you are nowhere remotely close. Days before this moment, I was on a podcast with Vaelastrasz worried I was going to mispronounce her and dozens of other names of dungeon synth artists during our conversation. I always wrote these names and if they were too complicated I just copied them from the internet. I never really had the opportunity to talk to other people in person about this fantasy ambient genre. Going to a in person dungeon synth festival is a change since this is the first time, for me and others, we get to see the music which up until this point only existed through cassette tapes and streaming platforms. How am I supposed to look smart and informed without the aid of a literal screen in front of me? Perhaps some of us are here to see if this thing we love can actually exist in the presence of others. Maybe dungeon synth is an imaginary friend I talk to when I am alone.

Dungeon synth began as a bedroom outlet for black metal musicians making fantasy landscapes in their home recording studios mostly distributed through underground trading networks. When the dungeon synth revival during the early 2010s blossomed on streaming sites, the music existed as a bedroom genre for musicians distributing their music online to fans directly or through equally small labels. Outside of a few instances of live performances and more talk about the desire to perform live, dungeon synth was a solitary genre with musicians creating music in private for fans who would consume much in the same way. This could have continued if the dungeon synth was predictable. The Northeast Dungeon Siege (NEDS) showed everyone this type of event wasn’t predictable.

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What would become an actual dungeon synth festival began years ago and overcame insurmountable odds not including a global pandemic. Since 2018, two organizers have been making strides to put on the largest dungeon synth festival in the US. While the last few years have caused the festival to be streamed due to Covid concerns, 2023 is the first time the festival is taking place in person since its 2019 installment. The organizers for NEDS seemed dedicated to making a show happen regardless of global pandemics and the fact this music was originally created for a solitary existence. What began as a haunt for local dungeon synth artists soon became an international pilgrimage site for an entire scene to gather in congregation. Did people really fly in from Poland, Denmark, Finland, and Spain for this event? How have they been saying this city’s name? NEDS has been here every step of the way peer pressuring this genre to just come out of the bedroom and play live. Why not? Why haven’t we been doing this already?

If anything can be said about the NEDS 2023 it is that everything felt like this should have been happening years ago. The audience looked like it belonged in any metal festival with battle jackets and tattooed arms cradling large cans of beer while flocking to the merch stands which lined the side walls. While I was not expecting everyone to don cloaks, the makeup of the crowd yielded a surprising number of veteran metal fans who are just also into fantasy ambient. There were a few fey-like costumes which floated around the crowd adding a festive spirit. These fans gathered around the small and eccentric space in The Raven, which seemed a hub to bizarre offbeat music. There was fake blood sprayed on the ceiling from some old show I am now interested in learning about.

The merchant stands held a gallery of tape labels, which allowed people who had been buying tapes for years to meet the merchants who had been selling them tapes for years. The abundance of electric votives and portable lights gave the merch lane a cozy atmosphere, as if a social space in some MMORPG with players who flocked around socializing with other adventurers.

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I think everyone had a question in their mind whether or not this whole thing would work. I know I did and I have been a longtime supporter of this music. Outside of fans traveling to a place to see an artist perform, would this music even work in a live setting? I think the answer to every question regarding live dungeon synth is “yes.” This is because there is no answer which speaks for all of the dungeon synth. Dungeon synth isn’t one thing rather anything for anyone willing to be into it. For many years dungeon synth has thrived because of ingenuity and experimentation. Its many genres and longevity from a microgenre has shown itself resilient due to people trying new things. While dungeon synth began as a solitary experience, its leap into live performance seemed natural because it is not tethered to any one thing. Dungeon synth can be a solitary experience or it can be a communal. Dungeon synth can be as serious or sacred or as irrelevant and profane as one wants it to be. It is a genre where you can have a mystical performance on the same stage as two people wearing dinosaur heads.

I would like to underline the variety of NEDS despite it all fitting under the umbrella of dungeon synth. From the depressive tones of Irithyll who shrieked behind a sole keyboard to the elaborate multi instrument set up for the first night closer Somber Arcane, NEDS offered a diversity in sound as well as lineup. There were celebrations of the traditional with acts like Wraith Knight and Vaelastrasz traversing landscapes with only a few keyboard and looping pedals as their main compass. Other acts like Jenn Taiga used an elaborate setup to combine Berlin school synth with a live (and unstreamable) sadomasochistic performance. Lord Bakartia held the crowd in some sort of martial ambient dance party during his set complete with drops. Foglord, who was a highlight and half of the reason for coming this weekend, dissolved the stage into bits of light and willow wisps. At times I was worried that seven and a half hours of ambient synth would be taxing given the latter acts going on at midnight but if anything everyone was more awake the later the hour became.

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Each of the performances at NEDS gave the artist an opportunity to showcase their personality. Though the plastic Stonehenge monument and the battery powered candelabra were a constant, aesthetics could range from the very elaborate, complete with costumes and scripted performance to the very simple and almost mundane. In one instance you have an artist in full corpse paint and with a keyboard festooned bones while the other looks like a noise musician with only a black hoodie while lurching over a folding table of electronics. Each artist commanded a different world while playing with either calls to the crowds or almost hiding behind a bank of hardware. Each instance was a chance for the musicians to introduce their characters, and there were little rules of expectations to what that backstory would be.

Arcana Liturgia and Gravelurker offered ritualistic sounds while Malfet basked in traditional medieval melodies. The worlds between the dreamy rawness of Keys to Oneiria and the marching orc army of Seregost made for a truly unique experience which led to a moshpit for one of them. Each day of the three day festival started at 6pm and ran until about 1 or 2 in the morning. It was a parade of continual surprises: entering the vampyric castle of Erythrite Throne and communing with the other via dark folk luminary Nest. Each time the curtain was manually opened, the audience was treated to a unique tableau of the artist’s imagination which ranged from intricate to unadorned. Alehoof‘s set looked like it could have been a noise show with a folding table full of electronics and zipped up black hoodie while Seregost looked battle ready in skull armor. The visuals each artist chose gave interesting context to their music, sometimes reinforcing a pre-existing aesthetic or completely subverting one.

NEDS offered me the unique opportunity to experience this fest in person as well as virtually. I was forced to travel and miss the final day, which collected some of the more eclectic performances from Pumpkin Witch, Diplodocus, Alder Deep, Blood Tower and others. In my past articles, I always kept the truly weird things for the end and this fest collected some of the most offbeat pioneers in the genre. Sitting at the airport, I was watching the remaining acts streaming while finishing up this article, seeing others in the chat responding to the performance. This is a genre of music which seems to exist in many facets and through multiple channels, and the festival organizers’ ability to run a show and keep up a livestream is commendable. NEDS both ran the live show and the livestream with little to no interruption, giving remote viewers a chance to peek into a gathering of like minded people who just happened to travel out and be together.

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I have been writing about dungeon synth for almost ten years, and seeing this festival this weekend showed me a scene of music that seems like it is just getting started. I was fully expecting this weekend to be a weird display of internet music trying to be a real live music genre. What this weekend showed me was a style of music unchained to any expectation and living its best life. I saw a room full of artists, merchants, and fans who seemed to be okay with just being imaginary friends and more than willing to take a step in becoming real friends. It was wonderful talking to the labels I have been emailing for years as we reminisced about old tapes everyone forgot about. It was equally as wonderful talking to new artists with new projects and learning about new scenes that have already been established.

NEDS was a chance to see this scene, which has moved beyond one hub of voices. Where in the past dungeon synth was a Facebook group and a forum, it is now dozens of Discords, subreddits, local scenes, and now an emerging live festival circuit. Dungeon synth is whatever people want it to be, and while I just celebrated its live aspect in this article I wanted to also reiterate that one answer is never going to be enough for dungeon synth. Is dungeon synth a live genre? Yes. Is dungeon synth a solitary genre? Yes. Is dungeon synth something we have yet to understand? Sure. It is what people make it and can be anything we want it to be. Much like an RPG or open world video game, dungeon synth is a canvas of imagination and a kingdom where we can escape to and meet our imaginary friends.

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More info on NEDS can be found at their official website.