Trogool - Beyond the River Skai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFKXX1S2rfc
Från intervju :
"How did you get into the idea of playing dungeon synth? What were you doing before you knew what DS was?
Well, before I knew about the genre tag “dungeon synth,” I was already into the music that collectively came to be filed under that banner. In a way, I was already doing DS as early as 2006ish. I was always really attracted to the idea of making music “at home” with computers or “keyboards” or whatever.
I’m not sure when the interest first developed, but it probably goes a ways back, because I was into the music I heard in video games as a kid in the 90s, and I seemed to have figured out, even back then, that it was done in some mysterious way that didn’t necessarily involve live performers but was instead a more solitary pursuit."
"I was talking with a friend around that time about how Bal-Sagoth’s intros and interlude tracks were so incredible, and he told me about how Mortiis had albums that were basically like “album-length intro tracks.” "
"Some of my earliest experiments with orchestral samples were based on the question, “what if Mortiis style music was made with more realistic orchestral elements?”"
"Anyway, to actually answer your question, I was hell-bent on making some kind of epic folky symphonic metal back in those days. From about 2006-2013 I tried to make that my main focus, and I made a couple of recordings with my project Waves of Amphitrite.
They’re not very good, though, and I had a bit of a crisis after which that project ended. I went back to the drawing board after that to figure out my strengths and weaknesses. I realized that my main interest really seemed to be in the virtual orchestra area, so I figured that, since I had managed over time to gather all the tools I needed to do a project from start to finish, I might as well focus on that.
It was sort of a coincidence that around that same time (2015), a friend of mine who shares my love of atmospheric music showed me Arath, and that was pretty much how I discovered that there was a whole new scene with new artists doing stuff in that style. That was a great time because it gave me some direction, and that’s where Trogool came from.
I was frankly sick of trying to write expressive personal lyrics; I just wanted to write some instrumental music inspired by stories I found evocative. It was just the perfect marriage of sound and aesthetic—the one I always wanted"
"Your albums are very orchestral with hints of Ennio Morricone in tracks like “Beholder of Ocean.” Do soundtracks or scores influence your work?
Some of my earliest favorite music was from my favorite movies, like Jurassic Park, for instance. I do love film scores, and they have undoubtedly had a big impact on me, maybe even more so now as an adult with some musical knowledge, looking back and re-experiencing them with a trained ear.
Soundtracks in general are something I’m always after in my Discogs want list, ha! Lately I’ve been listening a lot to a re-recording of Korngold’s score to the film The Sea Hawk, as well as a really cool re-recording of Herrmann’s score to Jason and the Argonauts.
Poledouris is one of my favorites (for obvious reasons). Also, the late James Horner wrote a great, underappreciated fantasy score to the cult classic movie Krull. I’m big into those types of movies. They’re fun and they tend to have equally enjoyable scores. Another favorite of mine is The Beastmaster.
Scores are interesting because they were often the place for experimentation. I’ve been reading a book called The Science of Sci-Fi Music (by Andrew May) that, in part, goes into this concept of cultural coding. That’s a really interesting concept in itself. It’s basically just tropes: why does a track sound “like the desert”? Why does one “desert” track succeed in bringing me there, while another, equally “desert,” track falls flat?
It’s just fun to think about why a score works for a given movie or game. And, of course, sometimes they’re just great to listen to without overthinking them. Not that I want to psychoanalyze myself here, but I bet film and game soundtracks played a role in preparing me to like music, like metal and dungeon synth, that is so tied to themes and aesthetics.
Video game soundtracks, too, have been really important to me all my life. In much the same way as film score, they were ubiquitous and varied. I listen to so much game music, new and old…"
https://www.invisibleoranges.com/trogool-interview/
