Sundaze 1443

Hello, it's that time of the year again and i'm not talking about resetting the clock this night, no i'm talking Samhain, it is known by most folks as Halloween, but for many modern Pagans it's considered a Sabbat to honor the ancestors who came before us, marking the dark time of the year. It's a good time to contact the spirit world with a seance, because it's the time when the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest. 

The Christians as usual wrote over Pagan feast days hence they created their own spin on Samhain's ghostly aspect by honoring their left over saints...The word Halloween or Hallowe'en dates to about 1745 and is of Christian origin. The word "Halloween" means "hallowed evening" or "holy evening". It comes from a Scottish term for All Hallows' Eve (the evening before All Hallows' Day). In Scots, the word "eve" is even, and this is contracted to e'en or een. Over time, (All) Hallow(s) Eve(n) evolved into Halloween. Anyway, keeping the ones that died that year happy has been the main objective these past supersticious centuries. These days is kids going for the trick and treats and the older ones about dressing up in prefarbly scary outfits.. All these activities need a scary soundtrack and that's where this and next week's posts come in..


Today's band is an American neoclassical, dark ambient musical duo, formed in 2003 by Joseph Vargo and William Piotrowski. Their name in Latin translates to "mysteries of the night." All of their music is released independently on the Monolith Graphics label, a publishing company owned by Joseph Vargo. They specializes in concept albums based on original stories, as well as gothic fiction and classic horror literature. Some of their albums also make reference to medieval themes and ancient mythology. . ...N'Joy


Sadly blogger was ordered to block this posting, oh well the mysteries of the night stay just that mysteries..

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In addition to the storytelling aspect of each album, hidden puzzles and interactive quests are incorporated into the album artwork and into the music itself. Their music is often used to provide atmosphere for films, public events, role-playing games and during Halloween at theme parks, several of which have based haunted attractions on Nox Arcana's original theme albums.

Nox Arcana's music is melodic and moody, focusing on a dominant melody line. Instrumentation varies with each album as appropriate to the theme or time period of the album concept, and typically includes piano, bells, violin, pipe organ, harpsichord, timpani drums and other percussion. Some albums also include cymbals, lutes, acoustic guitars, bagpipes and glockenspiel, depending on the theme of a given album.

Their music is generally classified as dark wave or dark ambient, "sometimes sandwiched into the gothic music genre" and aptly labeled "atmospheric gothic." The moods associated with Nox Arcana music describe it as ominous, romantic, lush, epic, otherworldly, menacing, spooky and eerie, Nox Arcana's music covers a broad range of sub-genres within the rock and alternative music categories. 

Joseph Vargo explained Nox Arcana's style to a blogger from Gnostics.com: "Our music is mainly classically based instrumental, although we do incorporate chanting choirs and spoken narratives for dramatic effect to achieve a blend of darkly haunting melodies that encompass the complete gothic spectrum the romantic, the mysterious, and the horrific. We utilize a variety of instruments such as piano, pipe organ, violin, acoustic guitar, drums and tolling bells to achieve symphonic orchestrations. Our concept has always been to create moody and melody-driven gothic soundscapes that take the listener on a musical journey through various dark realms of fantasy." 

Carnival of Lost Souls though primarily a dark cabaret-style album, also contains a heavy metal song, while the music on the Blood of Angels album blends industrial dance and tribal rhythms with ethereal-style vocals. Their trilogy of winter-themed albums feature a range of ethereal-style choirs, Gregorian-style chanting, classical music, and Celtic new-age instrumentation.

Vocals and narratives are also used sparingly to help relate a story or serve as introduction to a musical piece, for example, the voice of "Jonathan Harker" and whispered female voices of "Dracula's brides" that beckon to the listener, a carnival barker with the indistinct sounds of an audience in the distance, or "Edgar Allan Poe" and a voice calling out from the grave after being prematurely buried, the gravelly voice of a "witch" casting a spell, and a variety of low Gregorian-style chanting and choirs.

Beginning with the Blood of the Dragon CD in 2006, Vargo began a tradition of incorporating a quest or adventure within the album artwork and sometimes leaving clues in his narratives. He later went back and did the same for some of the earlier CDs. Now more than half of Nox Arcana's CDs contain some sort of hidden puzzle, which is left to the listener to discover.

Nox Arcana is influenced by new age, classical, ambient music, rock music, and film soundtracks, citing other composers such as John Carpenter, Danny Elfman, AC/DC, Wojciech Kilar, Enya, Loreena McKennitt, Beethoven, Jerry Goldsmith, and Hans Zimmer. Their literary references include H. P. Lovecraft, Bram Stoker, The Brothers Grimm, Ray Bradbury, and Edgar Allan Poe.

Nox Arcana released twenty albums between 2003 and 2013, an average of two each year, and have never recorded the same song twice. Their Winter's Knight album, released in 2005, peaked at #8 on the Billboard chart for Top Holiday Album in 2006 and 2007. Three albums, Blood of Angels, Zombie Influx, and House of Nightmares were recorded as side-projects with other artists or vocalists. Joseph Vargo wrote and recorded solo for seven of the albums, Blackthorn Asylum, Winter's Eve, Theater of Illusion, The Dark Tower, Winter's Majesty, Legion of Shadows, and Ebonshire. William Piotrowski released a solo film soundtrack, Crimson Winter.

Nox Arcana support a wide variety of independent productions like radio dramas and student films to which they lend their music. A number of professional performances of gothic plays, such as Frankenstein, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Dracula and Richard III have featured music by Nox Arcana.

In 2013, a young Corsican filmmaker Ariakina Ettori won first place in the L'Institut Régional du Cinéma et de l'Audiovisuel (IRCA) with her modern version of "Little Red Riding Hood" inspired by Nox Arcana's song "Night of the Wolf." The film school credits Joseph Vargo and Nox Arcana for their unconditional support. [16]

William Piotrowski wrote the score for a local production entitled Ghosts of Ohio, a video documentary about Mary Ann Winkowski, a real-life medium who inspired the CBS television show Ghost Whisperer.[17] In 2013, William wrote and performed the motion picture soundtrack for the vampire film Crimson Winter.[18]

Nox Arcana's music is used by theme parks such as Busch Gardens, Six Flags, Knott's Scary Farm and Universal Studios during Halloween for scenes and haunted houses based upon their album themes. Nox Arcana's music is featured exclusively on the TV show America Haunts for the Travel Channel, which has aired throughout the Halloween weekend each year since 2009. Music from Nox Arcana's Transylvania album was featured on the FOX TV show So You Think You Can Dance.

Nox Arcana's sound has been used by other performing artists to introduce their albums or live shows. Joseph Vargo recorded the vocal Intro for the 2008 album Witchtanic Hellucinations by Acid Witch.  He also provided the intro music and vocals for Legion of the Damned albums Cult of the Dead (2008) and Decent Into Chaos (2011). LOTD also opened their 2010 "Slaughtering" tour with Nox Arcana's song "Circus Diabolique" from their album Carnival of Lost Souls. In 2013, Blood on the Dance Floor opened their Bad Blood tour with "Essence of Evil" from Nox Arcana's Blackthorn Asylum album.

Monolith Graphics publishes and distributes Nox Arcana music worldwide. The publishing company is owned by Joseph Vargo, who became world-renowned as a gothic-fantasy artist in the early 1990s with work ranging from album covers and books to posters and other products Before forming Nox Arcana in 2003, Joseph Vargo produced two albums for Midnight Syndicate but left the band in 2000 to co-write Tales from the Dark Tower, a book that follows the exploits of a vampire during the First Crusade. Over the next 8 years, he published Dark Realms magazine, released a best-selling card deck, The Gothic Tarot, and wrote a book based on his original story for Nox Arcana's debut album, Darklore Manor.[34] In 2011, Vargo released, Beyond the Dark Tower, a sequel to Tales from the Dark Tower along with The Dark Tower album based on 

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Darklore Manor is the debut album by gothic horror musical duo Nox Arcana. It released on December 15, 2003 on the Monolith Graphics label. It features a style of music that bears a similarity to Joseph Vargo's earlier work on the album Born of the Night with Midnight Syndicate, a group that he helped to establish in 1998 prior to his founding of Nox Arcana. This album was inspired by a real-life haunted house located near Salem, Massachusetts, an old Victorian mansion built in 1889. According to local legend, a curse befell the Darklore family, resulting in many mysterious deaths. Then in 1941, the last of the bloodline, Damon Darklore, his wife Elizabeth, and their daughter Belladonna disappeared without any explanation.

Over the years, the abandoned Darklore Manor became a local haunt, something to scare kids on Halloween and a place for daring teenagers to hang out. In 1968, three teens disappeared after holding a seance there on Halloween. The old manor finally burned to the ground in 1971.

Nox Arcana - Darklore Manor  (flac 260mb)

01 Legend 1:49
02 Darklore Manor 2:27
03 Threshold Of The Dead 1:18
04 Trespassers 2:52
05 Veil Of Darkness 1:55
06 Sanctuary Of Shadows 3:12
07 The Grande Hall 1:55
08 Remnants 2:06
09 Phantom Procession 1:46
10 Belladonna 2:41
11 Nursery Rhyme 0:40
12 Music Box 2:08
13 The Forgotten 2:44
14 Nightmare 1:56
15 No Rest For The Wicked 3:12
16 Omen 0:43
17 Seance 2:56
18 Beyond Midnight 3:04
19 Darkness Immortal 3:39
20 Incantation 1:55
21 Resurrected 2:13

Nox Arcana - Darklore Manor  (ogg 104mb)

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Necronomicon is the second album by Neoclassical darkwave/dark ambient musical duo Nox Arcana published by Monolith Graphics on October 10, 2004. The music is inspired by the stories of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and is a tribute to the Cthulhu Mythos. Contents fan new or old of Delerium. Early Delerium lovers will enjoy immensely this classic album. 

Orchestra, string instruments, drums, pipes, guitars and choirs are accented by ominous chanting, strange sound effects and brief narratives that combine to tell the story of an alchemist who dares to raise an ancient race of otherworldly beings.

The "language of the Old Ones" developed by Lovecraft as a literary plot element but considered by many to be unpronouncable, is effectively spoken aloud by Joseph Vargo on several of the tracks. Vargo, who is a huge fan of Lovecraft's work, also illustrated the CD packaging to appear as he imagined the famed fictional book to be from Lovecraft's descriptions. A hidden track on the CD also contains the phrase "Klaatu barada nikto", a well-known quote from the film The Day the Earth Stood Still and Army of Darkness, which in turn borrowed thematic elements from Lovecraft

Some of the songs titles are also titles of Lovecraft stories, such as "The Nameless City" and "The Haunter of the Dark", while others song titles such as Azathoth, Dagon, Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones are the names of gods, demons or other supernatural entities from Lovecraft's fiction. A chapter in the book, The Strange Sound of Cthulhu: Music Inspired by the Writings of H. P. Lovecraft was devoted to this album. Nox Arcana's Necronomicon along with their later tribute to the Cthulhu mythos Blackthorn Asylum received mention in Gordon Kerr's book Cthulhu: Dark Fantasy, Horror & Supernatural Movies.

Nox Arcana - Necronomicon (flac  249mb)
  
01 Mythos 1:58
02 The Nameless City 3:38
03 Alhazred's Vision 2:55
04 Necronomicon 2:03
05 Ancient Shadows 2:28
06 Azathoth 0:28
07 The Black Throne 2:01
08 Nyarlathotep 0:40
09 Temple Of The Black Pharaoh 3:50
10 Eldritch Rites 1:33
11 The Haunter Of The Dark 2:38
12 The Awakening 2:59
13 Yog-Sothoth 1:00
14 Guardian Of The Gate 3:26
15 Lords Of Darkness 2:08
16 Dagon 0:35
17 The Stars Align 1:57
18 Cthulhu 0:55
19 Ritual Of Summoning 1:21
20 Cthulhu Rising 2:38
21 The Great Old Ones 4:06

Nox Arcana - Necronomicon (ogg 101mb)

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Transylvania is the fourth album by gothic duo Nox Arcana. This album is an musical tribute to Bram Stoker's Dracula. The duo employs their musical storytelling concept to take their listeners through chapters of the classic novel—beginning with Jonathan Harker's voyage into the Carpathian Mountains, a ride in Dracula's ominous black coach, arriving at Castle Dracula, a rendezvous with Dracula's brides, and a foray into a gypsy encampment, and finally into the lair of the vampire. This album will haunt you, thrill you and at times chill you to the bone. The compositions range from eerie piano melodies of "Nocturne" and "Gossamer Mist" to the to the pipe organ refrains of "Castle Dracula" and the brooding orchestrations and chanting that fill "Night of the Wolf." "Grande Masquerade" and "Gothic Sanctum" will more than satisfy any dark music lover's classical appetite, while "Gypsy Caravan" has a mystical percussive rhythm that is musically hypnotic. Several creepy vocal interludes accent the story to further immerse you in this macabre and shadowy realm. Creatures of the night howl at the full moon and unearthly voices of sentinel gargoyles warn trespassers away while the whispers of Dracula's brides lure the listener deeper into the lair of the vampire. This is a phenomenal cd that is the perfect soundtrack to any dark soul's gothic dreams or nightmares. 

As with previous albums, the booklet artwork is supplied by Joseph Vargo, with illustrations and quotes from Harker and Van Helsing. The duo's website also offers some historical background for the inspiration of their album. Nox Arcana took their subject matter very seriously when composing the music for Transylvania. The album was also used to score a televised edition of the 1922 silent film Nosferatu.

Nox Arcana -  Transylvania   (flac 253mb)

01 Transylvania Overture 2:01
02 The Voyage 2:54
03 Gossamer Mist 2:39
04 The Black Coach 2:35
05 Sentinels Of Stone 0:44
06 Into The Shadows 2:59
07 Castle Dracula 2:56
08 Visitors In The Night 0:57
09 Brides To Darkness 2:34
10 Grande Masquerade 4:14
11 Memento Mori 2:28
12 The Howling 1:20
13 Nocturne 2:55
14 Bats In The Belfry 0:35
15 Gothic Sanctum 2:43
16 Gypsy Caravan 4:13
17 From Dusk Till Dawn 0:53
18 Night Of The Wolf 3:59
19 Echoes From The Crypt 2:37
20 Shadow Hunters 2:51
21 Lair Of The Vampire 3:18

Nox Arcana -  Transylvania   (ogg 106mb)

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