Ithildin is an artist I've wanted to discuss here for quite some months. It is a pleasure to conclude my 2024 journals with his music.
If you allow me to be a bit melodramatic, Dungeon Synth has a problem with projects inspired by The Lord of the Rings or the broader Tolkien legendarium. Since some amazing, seminal releases back in the 90s, there's a kind of "Tolkien-inspired rough 15-minutes demo" trope that is still strong even after so many years.
To be 100% explicit: Secret Stairways is amazing. Its clones, less so.
If there's one artist that, in my book, not only does justice to Tolkien's lore, but does so while incarnating all that I love about "modern" Dungeon Synth, it is Ithildin. I first met his music when he shared the third volume in the Arda's Herbarium series.
This amazing project is a huge homage to an obscure book of Tolkenian lore: Flora of Middle-Earth: Plants of J.R.R. Tolkien's Legendarium, written by retired botanist Walter S. Judd and with illustrations by Graham A. Judd. The book is a love letter to Tolkien's worldbuilding, while staying true to scientific principles (you can read a more in-depth review here). The author went carefully through Tolkien's books and found all the references to the plants, vegetables and fruits of Middle Earth, and compiled them into an accessible, if somewhat specialized, book for everyone. And, with Arda's Herbarium, Ithildin embarked on the quest of putting into music all 100+ entries of Flora of Middle Earth.
I was really impressed by this titanic task. I mean: who sets out to do such a huge undertaking? And for what purpose?
Let's get this out of the way first: the music of Arda's Herbarium is amazing and showcases almost all aspects of Ithildin's skills as a musician. One can find carefree melodies on apples and carrots side by side to black metal representing the darker side of Middle Earth's flora.
Along the journey, there are also more typical Dungeon Synth atmospheres and amazing collaborations that are bringing the project to new depths.
Having said that the music is what I consider to be peak Dungeon Synth (and, if one needs saying, also comfy synth, fantasy synth, and so on) in 2024, I want to go back to my first question: who sets out to do such a quest, and why? After all, Ithildin could have chosen a subset of plants for a single release on the subject. I can't claim to have all the answers, but my take on both the book and Ithildin's series is: there is a way of looking at the mundane that helps rediscover the magic even in the smallest, most common things. This idea is expressed very clearly in the description of Vol. II.
The professor’s process of magnifying, naming and animating all plants pushes us to notice the plants that surround us in a concrete way. Tolkienian mythopoeia does not promote escapism - it reconnects us to important elements of our internal, natural and cultural landscapes. It impacts how we interact with others and with our surroundings - with what we see, what we smell and what we hear.
Are you really listening to what surrounds you?
The idea of escapism as a way to reconnect with what's around us is one I deeply relate with, as I have said at the beginning of the year in the journal entry on Bruna - Desolazione Rurale. I can really feel why such a project can capture an artist's imagination so completely as to give oneself to such a multi-year, multi-release adventure.
Arda's Herbarium might be Ithildin's magnum opus, but he has also a more, let's say traditional, take on the Tolkien legendarium. Indeed, his very first release is, so to speak, a musical rereading of the very first chapter of The Lord of the Rings and, in 2024, he followed up with chapter 2.
There's nothing hasty, superficial or generic about these two albums. Indeed, each of these releases is both a narrative feat and a deep cut into some of the details that someone like me might forget over the years (I had completely forgotten about Shadowfax, for instance). The Shadow of the Past, in particular, conveys the personal scale of the story without losing sight of the epic tale, and I found the songs about Gollum to be almost hearthbreaking. The level of craftsmanship and attention to details is stunning: as with Tolkien's masterpiece, one could come back to these album again and again and discover something new at every listen.
Tolkien is the fil rouge leading me to another feature I absolutely love of Ithildin's music.
I haven't mentioned yet that Ithildin was, for a long time, a gigging drummer. I don't really know what kind of music he played, but one can take an educated guess by looking at some of the inspirations for his more unique projects. The Hobbit At The Gates Of Dawn is a hommage to the classical Pink Floyd release, and it is one of the most fun contaminations I've come across in Dungeon Synth (another very recent example is a project by a one Samwise Gramsci). I should also mention that one of the influences that The Hobbit At The Gates Of Dawn had on me was to show me that a Dungeon Synth cover album was not only possible, but also a worthy and fun quest.
And this is another feature of Ithildin's music that I really love and find inspiring: the contaminations with prog rock blend seamlessly with whatever fantasy imagery Ithildin chooses to embrace and open up a new world of sonic possibilities in Dungeon Synth.
Ithildin's influence on my music is more evident in Auguries of Innocence, where I tried (among other things) to channel my inner prog musician in many of the compositions. For instance, check out A wild flower, the song that above every other is directly inspired by Ithildin's prog releases.
Besides being a skilled musician, Ithildin is also a visual artist (he draws many of his covers, for instance) and runs with a friend the amazing Les Cassettes Magiques, a precious gem of a label focusing on a variety of projects also outside of Dungeon Synth.
Rereading my Bandcamp reviews of Ithildin's music, I see that I used the word 'magic' a lot. It's really a fitting word for such an amazing artist that is able to combine so wildly different influences and inspirations into a coherent music corpus. Wizards are real and Ithildin is one of them, and I'm so happy I've met him through Dungeon Synth.
ᚼᛁᛆᚱᛐᛆᚿᛋ, November-December 2024