Style: old school dungeonsynth
Primary Emotions/Themes: The one, the only, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Thoughts: There is something magical about early dungeon synth. In the times before there was even a genre associated with the sound. In the times when everyone stumbled into the sound on their own. There were no rules, no constraints... just pure artistic freedom to create music the way the artist saw fit.
To say that Jim Kirkwood's music is unique in the genre is a statement that still holds up today. I have yet to hear another artist that manages to interpret dark dungeon music such as Jim does on his early 90's Tolkien albums.
These albums have a life to them, a spark, that simply is not in the modern version of the genre. Sure we get celestial music sometimes which is grand and epic in scope, but that is not what I'm talking about here. This is still very rooted in the earth and the dark places of fantasy, yet it has this sheen and sparkliness to the instruments that I have yet to hear in the genre elsewhere. It's more akin to Japanese city pop than it is anything else within the dungeons.
There is also an urgency to this album that I don't hear many other places. These songs, they have a way of making me feel like I am prey and someone (likely an Uruk-Hai) is stalking me to move in for the kill. It creates a very tense atmosphere and again, makes for a very unique listen.
Jim would go on to create a lot more music after this, and unfortunately I haven't had the pleasure of listening to much of it. That is absolutely something that I am going to explore more in the future, but at current I simply have too much other stuff to listen to. I am contented to have this and his other Tolkien albums in my collection for the time being.
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